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“Gentlemen,” said Andrew, “I am not a bum. I am worth five 
thousand dollars to the man who turns me over, dead or alive . . . ” 


Frontispiece—Page 155 


.^4 




Free Range Fanning 


A Western Story 


By GEORGE OWEN BAXTER ^ 



A. L. BURT COMPANY 
Publishers New York 

Published by arrangement with Chelsea House 









Copyright, 1921 
By CHELSEA HOUSE 


Free Range Banning 


All rights reserved, including that of translation into foreiga 
languages, including the Scandinavian. 


CONTENTS 


ISBAPmt 

L 

Blood and Iron . . 

• 


M 

FACE 

II 

11. 

Andy Examines His Hands 

. 

• 

17 

ill. 

In the Saddle . . . 




24 

IV. 

Bill Takes the Trail . 




30 

V. 

Fear or Iron Dust . . 


8 

9 . 

36 

VI. 

The Merchant House , 



§ 

42 

yii. 

^'Betwixt and Between” 




48 

lVIII. 

Bill^s Bargain . . . 




58 

IX. 

The Birth of a Desperado 

. 

g 

65 

X. 

Andy's Death Warrant 


¥ 


72 

XL 

Andy Takes Cards . . 




78 

XII. 

The Bringer of News 


* 

. 

84 

XIII. 

Andy is Introduced . . 




90 

XIV. 

Invisible Bonds . . . 




97 

XV. 

Toward the Far Horizon 


4 


los 


Tii 






vill 


CONTENTS 


PAGB 


C3HAPTER 


XVI. 

In Room Seventeen . . . 


• 

III 

XVII. 

Heaven and Hell . . . 


• 

II7 

XVIIL 

Like a Red Flash . . . 


• 

125 

XIX. 

Sanctuary in the Hills . 


• 

132 

XX. 

Hank Makes a Gift . . 


• 

138 

XXL 

Hank Drops His Cards . 


• 

144 

XXII. 

The Threshold of Mercy 


• 

150 

XXIIL 

Under Cover. 


• 

156 

XXIV. 

Jud’s Sacrifice .... 


' * 

162 

XXV. 

A* Man of Doubts . . . 


9 

1167 

XXVI. 

By A Spider Thread . . « 



174 

XXVII. 

The Wooing of Sally . .: 


i 

182 

xxyiii. 

The Blond Beard . . . 

§ 

§ 

189 

XXIX. 

Truth and Fiction . . , 

i| 

• 

196 

XXX. 

Greek Meets Greek . . , 

? 


203 

XXXL 

Horse Against Horse . , 

S 

9 

212 

XXXIL 

‘The Inner Shrine’’ . . 


• 

222 

XXXIII. 

Bess Baldwin ..... 


• 

235 

XXXIV. 

The Rules of the Game . 

• 

, 

242 






CONTENTS ix 

CBAPTEB PAGE 

XXXV. The Holdup . 251 

XXXVL Allister’s Successor .... 261 
XXXVII. A Duel to the Death .... 267 
XXXVIII. Andy Pays Himself .... 276 
XXXIX. In the Other Room .... 281 
XL. At the Point of a Rifle . . . 288 
XLI. Between a Horse and a Girl . 296 









FREE RANGE LANNING 

CHAPTER I 

BLOOD AND IRON 

B eside the rear window of the blacksmith shop Jasper 
Panning held his withered arms folded against his 
chest With the dispassionate eye and the aching heart 
of an artist he said to himself that his life work was a 
failure. That life work was the young fellow who swung 
the sledge at the forge, and truly it was a strange product 
for this seventy-year-old veteran with his slant Oriental 
eyes and his narrow beard of white. Andrew Panning 
was not even his son, but it came about in this way that 
Andrew became the life work of Jasper. 

Fifteen years before the father of Andy died, and 
Jasper rode out of the mountain desert like a hawk drop¬ 
ping out of the pale-blue sky; for the clan spirit of the 
Pannings was as strong as the clan spirit of the Campbells 
and Stewarts in the old days. Jasper buried his brother 
without a tear, and then sat down and looked at the 
slender child who bore his name. Andy was a beautiful 
boy. He had the black hair and eyes, the well-made jaw, 
and the bone of the Pannings, and if his mouth was 
rather soft and girlish he laid the failing to the weakness 
of childhood. Jasper had no sympathy for tenderness in 
men. His own life was as littered with hard deeds as 
the side of a mountain with bowlders. But the black, 
bright eyes and the well-made jaw of little Andy laid 
hold on him, and he said to himself: 'T’m fifty-five. I’m 
about through with my saddle days. I’ll settle down and 


12 


FREE RANGE FANNING 


turn out one piece of work that’ll last after I’m gone, and 
last with my signature on it!” 

That was fifteen years ago. And for fifteen years he 
had labored to make Andy a man according to a grim 
pattern which was known in the Fanning clan, and else¬ 
where in the mountain desert. His program was as simple 
as the curriculum of a Persian youth. On the whole, it 
was even simpler, for Jasper concentrated on teaching the 
boy how to ride and shoot, and was not at all particular 
that he should learn to speak the truth. But on the first 
two and greatest articles of his creed, how Jasper labored! 

For fifteen years he poured his heart without stint into 
his work! He taught Andy to know a horse from hock 
to teeth, and to ride anything that wore hair. He taught 
him to know a gun as if it were a sentient thing. He 
taught him all the draws of old and new pattern, and 
labored to give him both precision and speed. That was 
the work of fifteen years, and now at the end of this 
time the old man pressed his bony shoulders against the 
wall of the blacksmith shop and knew that his work was a 
failure. 

It came coldly and smoothly home to him as truths 
which we discover for ourselves are apt to do, or as a 
poniard point comes easily home to the heart. Jasper 
felt like that; there was death inside him; but he rolled 
his cigarette in Mexican style, thin and hard, and smoked 
it with a masklike face. His life work w^as a failure, for 
he had made the hand of Andrew Fannuig cunning, had 
given his muscles strength, but the heart beneath was 
wrong. 

It was hard to see Andy at the first glance. A film of 
smoke shifted and eddied through the shop, and Andy, 
working the bellows, w^^s a black form against the square 
of the door, a square filled by the blinding white of the 


BLOOD AND IRON 


13 

alkali dust in the road outside and the blinding white of 
the sun above. Andy turned from the forge, bearing in 
his tongs a great bar of iron black at the ends but white 
in the middle. The white place was surrounded by a 
sparkling radiance. Andy caught up an eight-pound 
hammer, and it rose and fell lightly in his hand; the blows 
were a shower; there was strength for you! The sparks 
were flung to the farthest corners of the shop. On the 
floor they became little spots of darkening red; they 
rushed against the leather apron of the hammer wielder, 
and as the blows fell rapid waves of light were thrown 
against the f^ee of Andrew. 

Looking at that face one wondered how the life work 
of Jasper was such a failure. For Andy was a handsome 
fellow with his blue-black hair and his black, rather slant¬ 
ing eyes, after the Lanning manner. Yet Jasper saw, 
and his heart was sick. The face was a little too full; the 
square bone of the chin was rounded with flesh; and, 
a^ve all, the mouth had never changed. It was the 
mouth of the child, soft—^too womanly soft. And Jasper 
blinked. 

When he opened his eyes again the white place on the 
iron had become a dull red, and the face of the black¬ 
smith was again in shadow. All Jasper could see was 
the body of Andy, and that was much better. Red light 
glinted on the sinewy arms and the swaying shoulders, 
and the hammer swayed and fell tirelessly. For fifteen 
years Jasper had consoled himself with the strength of 
the boy, smooth as silk and as durable; the light form 
which would not tire a horse, but swelled above the waist 
into those formidable shoulders. 

Now the bar was lifted from the anvil and plunged, 
hissing, into the bucket beside the forge; above the bucket 
a cloud of steam rose and showed clearly against the 


14 


FREE RANGE FANNING 


brilliant square of the door, and the peculiar scent which 
came from the iron went sharply to the nostrils of Jas¬ 
per. He got up and straightened his long, age-withered 
limbs as a horseman entered the shop. He came in a 
manner that pleased Jasper. There was a rush of hoof- 
beats, a form darting through the door, and in the midst 
of the shop the rider leaped out of the saddle and the 
horse came to a halt with braced legs. It knocked up 
a cloud of dust that blew slowly over to Jasper in the 
rear of the shop. 

‘‘Hey, youl” called the rider as he tossed the reins 
over the head of his horse. ‘'Here's a hoss that needs 
iron on his feet. Fix him up. And look here"—he 
lifted a forefoot and showed the scales on the frog and 
sole of the hoof—"last time you shoed this hoss you 
done a sloppy job, son. You left all this stuff bangin' 
on here. I want it trimmed off nice an' neat. You 
hear ?" 

The blacksmith shrugged his shoulders. 

"Spoils the hoof to put the knife on the sole, Buck," 
said the smith. "That peels off natural.” 

"H'm,” said "Buck” Heath. "How old are you, son ?” 

"Oh, old enough,” answered Andy cheerily. "Old 
enough to know that this exfoliation is entirely natural.” 

The big word stuck in the craw of Buck Heath, who 
brought his thick eyebrows together. "I've rid horses 
off and on come twenty-five years,” he declared, "and 
I've rid 'em long enough to know how I want 'em shod. 
This is my hoss, son, and you do it my way. That 
straight ?'' 

The eye of old Jasper in the rear of the shop grew 
dim with wistfulness as he heard this talk. He knew 
Buck Heath; he knew his kind; in his day he would have 
eaten a dozen men of such rough words and such mild 


BLOOD AND IRON 


15 

deeds as Buck. But searching the face of Andy, he saw 
no resentment. Merely a quiet resignation. 

‘‘Another thing/" said Buck Heath, who seemed de¬ 
termined to press the thing to a disagreeable point. “I 
hear you don’t fit your shoes on hot. Well ?” 

“I never touch a hoof with hot iron,” replied Andy. 
“It"s a rotten practice.” 

“Is it?” said Buck Heath coldly. “Well, son, you fit 
my boss with hot shoes or I’ll know the reason why.” 

“I’ve got to do the work my own way,” protested 
Andy. 

A spark of hope burned in the slant eyes of Jasper. 

‘^Otherwise I can go find another gent to do my shoe- 
in’ ?” inquired Buck. 

“It looks that way,” replied the blacksmith with a nod. 

“Well,” said Buck, whose mildness of the last ques¬ 
tion had been merely the cover for a bursting wrath that 
now sent his voice booming, “maybe you know a whole 
pile, boy—I hear Jasper has give you consid’able edu¬ 
cation—^but what you know is plumb wasted on me. 
Understand ? As for lookin’ up another blacksmith, you 
ought to know they ain’t another shop in ten miles. 
You’ll do this job, and you’ll do it my way. Maybe you 
got another way of thinkin’ ?” 

There was a little pause. 

“It’s your horse,” repeated Andy. “I suppose I can 
do him your own way.” 

Old Jasper closed his eyes and grinned in a silent 
agony. Looking again, he saw Buck Heath grinning 
with contempt, and for a single moment Jasper touched 
his gun. Then he remembered that he was seventy years 
old. He stood up. “Well, Buck?” he said, coming for¬ 
ward. For he felt that if this scene continued he would 
go mad with shame. 


i 6 


FREE RANGE FANNING 


There was a great change in Buck as he heard this 
voice, a marked respect was in his manner as he turned 
to Jasper. ''Hello, Jas,'’ he said. "I didn’t know you 
was here.” 

"Come over to the saloon. Buck, and have one on me,” 
said Jasper. "I guess Andy’ll have your boss ready 
when we come back.” 

"Speakin’ personal,” said Buck Heath with much 
heartiness, "I don’t pass up no chances with no man, and 
particular if he’s Jasper Fanning.” He hooked his arm 
through Jasper’s elbow. "Besides, I’m all lined with 
alkali, Jas.” 

Then he added: "And that boy of yours has got me 
all heated up. Where’d he learn them man-sized words, 
Jas?” 

All of which Andy heard, and he knew that Buck 
Heath intended him to hear them. It made Andy frown, 
and for an instant he thought of calling Buck back. But 
he did not call. Instead he imagined what would happen. 
Buck would turn on his heel and stand, towering, in the 
door. He would ask what Andy wanted. Andy chose 
the careful insult which he would throw in Buck’s face. 
He saw the blow given. He felt his own fist tingle as 
he returned the effort with interest. He saw Buck tum¬ 
ble back over the bucket of water. 

His thoughts roved on. He saw Buck drag himself 
up and away with a lump on his jaw. He saw the faces 
of other men as he passed them on the single street of 
the town. He felt their eyes on him—^the man who beat 
up big Buck Heath. 

By this time Andy was smiling gently to himself. His 
wrath had dissolved in that thinking, and he was hum¬ 
ming pleasantly to himself as he began to pull off the 
worn shoes of Buck’s horse. 


CHAPTER II 

ANDY EXAMINES HIS HANDS 

Y oung Andrew Panning lived in the small, hushed 
world of his own thoughts. Between him and the 
bitter necessities of a man’s world stood the figure of 
Jasper, and Uncle Jasper’s name was one to frighten off 
trouble from the most troublesome. Half a century ago 
he had done things which were now legend, and the awe 
of his past still surrounded him. It was pleasant for 
Andy to make things with his hands, and therefore the 
blacksmith shop contented him. As for the hard labor, 
his muscles made it play, and as to the future, for which 
every young man lives, the dreams of Andy made up 
that time to come. 

In reality he neither loved nor hated the world and 
the people around him. He simply did not see them. 
His mother—it was from her that he inherited the softer 
qualities of his mind and his face—had lived long enough 
to temper his vocabulary also; she had even left him a 
little stock of books. And though Andy was by no 
means a reader, he had at least picked up that danger¬ 
ous equipment of fiction which enables a man to dodge 
reality and live in his dreams. Those dreams had as 
little as possible to do with the daily routine of his life, 
and certainly the handling of guns, which his uncle en¬ 
forced upon him, was never a part of the future as Andy 
saw it. 

It was now the late afternoon; the alkali dust in the 
road was still in a white light, but the temperature in the 


i8 


FREE RANGE FANNING 


shop had dropped several degrees. The horse of Buck 
Heath was shod, and Andy was laying his tools away 
for the day when he heard the noise of an automobile 
with open muffler coming down the street. He stepped 
to the door to watch, and at that moment a big blue car 
trundled into view around the bend of the road. The 
rear wheels struck a slide of sand and dust, and skidded; 
a girl cried out; then the big machine gathered out of 
the cloud of dust, and came bowling toward Andy. It 
came with a crackling like musketry, and it was plain 
that it would leap through Martindale and away into the 
country beyond at a bound. Andy could see now that 
it was a roadster, low-hung, ponderous, to keep the road. 
The ways through the mountains must be murderous to 
such a make of car. 

Pat Gregg was leaving the saloon; he was on his horse, 
but he sat the saddle slanting, and his head was turned 
to give the farewell word to several figures who bulged 
through the door of the saloon. For that reason, as well 
as because of the fumes in his brain, he did not hear the 
coming of the automobile. His friendj." from the saloon 
saw, however. They yelled a warning, but he evidently 
thought it some jest, as he waved his hand with a grin 
of appreciation. The big car was coming, rocking with 
its speed; it was too late now to stop that flying mass of 
metal. 

But the driver made the effort. His brakes shrieked, 
and still the car shot on with scarcely abated speed, for 
the wheels could secure no purchase in the thin sand of 
the roadway. Andy’s heart stood still in sympathy as 
he saw the face of the driver whiten and grow tense. 
Charles Merchant, the son of rich John Merchant, was 
behind the wheel. Drunken Pat Gregg had taken the 
warning at last. He turned in the saddle and drove 


ANDY EXAMINES HIS HANDS 19 

home his spurs, but even that had been too late had not 
Charles Merchant taken the big chance. At the risk of 
overturning the machine he veered it sharply to the left. 
It hung for a moment on two wheels. Andy could count 
a dozen heartbeats while the plunging car edged around 
the horse and shoved between Pat and the wall of the 
house—inches on either side. Yet it must have taken 
not more than the split part of a second. 

There was a shout of applause from the saloon; Pat 
Gregg sat his horse, mouth open, his face pale, and then 
the heavy car rolled past the blacksmith shop. Andy, 
breathing freely and cold to his finger tips, saw young 
Charlie Merchant relax to a flickering smile as the girl 
beside him caught his arm and spoke to him. 

And then Andy saw her for the first time. 

She wore a linen duster and a linen hat: All Andy 
could see was the white flash of her hand as she gestured, 
and her face. But that was enough. His eyes had been 
traveling with lightning speed as the car threatened the 
horse and Pat. Now, in the brief instant as the machine 
moved by, he no'^ only saw her clearly, but he printed the 
picture to be seen again when she was gone. What was 
the hair? Red bronze, and fiery where the sun caught 
at it, and the eyes were gray, or blue, or a gray-green. 
But colors did not matter. It was all in her smile and 
the turning of her eyes, which were very wide open. She 
spoke, and it was in the sound of her voice. 

‘‘Wait!’" shouted Andy Tanning as he made a step 
ri ' . *d them. But the car went on, rocking over the 
! vs and the exhaust roaring. Andy became aware 
; : his shout had been only a dry whisper. Besides, 

. ; would he say if they did stop ? 

• rd then the girl turned sharply about and looked 
h: , not at the horse they had so nearly struck, but at 


20 


FREE RANGE FANNING 


Andy standing in the door of his shop. It seemed to 
him that that glance entered his eyes and reached his 
soul; he felt sure that she would remember his face; her 
smile had gone out while she stared, and now she turned 
her head suddenly to the front. Once more the sun 
flashed on her hair; then the machine disappeared. In 
a moment even the roar of the engine was lost, but it 
came back again, flung in echoes from some hillside. 

Not until all was silent, and the boys from the saloon 
were shaking hands with Pat and laughing at him, did 
Andy turn back into the blacksmith shop. It confronted 
him like a piece of black night with shadows in it. Per¬ 
haps that was the effect of the sudden turning from 
bright daylight. 

He sat down on the anvil with his heart beating, and 
began to recall the picture. Yes, it was all in the smile 
and the glint of the eyes. And something else—^how 
should he say it?—of the light shining through her. 

Once, in the mountains, looking suddenly up, it had 
seemed to Andy that all the stars were looking at him; 
that he could hear the silence of the wilderness. And 
his heart had beat as it was beating now. He had never 
had that sensation again, but he knew the sky would 
always be there, waiting And so with this girl. In 
the dusty street, in the sharp, hot sunshine, in the roar 
of the motor and the crackling of voices, she had fallen 
on the mind of Andy like a holy quiet. But having seen 
her once he would never see her again. 

He could have borne that loss; he could have ret^'^^d 
the picture as something beautiful and beautifully ii 
sonal if he had not heard her voice. As a touch of • 
will thrill all the nerves from the finger tips so the 
of her voice had gone softly through him. And : 


ANDY EXAMINES HIS HANDS 


21 


her face was forgotten the memory of that voice would 
keep tugging at his heartstrings. 

Suppose one wakens from a dream of music. The 
music is gone; only the happiness remains, together with 
the bitter sense of loss. Andy sat on the anvil with 
closed eyes and put his hand over his heart, where the 
pain was. 

He stood up presently, closed the shop, and went home. 
Afterward his uncle came in a fierce humor, slamming 
the door. He found Andy sitting in front of the table 
staring down at his hands. 

‘‘Buck Heath has been talkin’ about you,” said Jasper. 

Andy raised his head. “Look at ’em!” he said as he 
.spread out his hands. 

“Buck Heath has been sayin’ things that would of got 
him shot when I was your age,” said Jasper more point¬ 
edly than he had ever spoken before. And he sickened 
when he saw that Andy refused to hear. 

“Look at ’em,” repeated Andy. “I been scrubbin’ ’em 
with sand soap for half an hour, and the oil and the iron 
dust won’t come out.” 

Uncle Jasper, who had a quiet voice and gentle man¬ 
ners, now stood rigid. “I wisht to God that some iron 
dust would work its way into your soul,” he said. He 
let his voice go big. “Oh, Lord, how I wisht you had 
some iron dust in your heart!” 

“What are you talking about?” 

“Nothin’ you could understand; you need a mother to 
explain things to you.” 

The other got up, white about the mouth. “I think I 
do,” said Andy. “I’m sick inside.” 

“Where’s supper?” demanded Jasper. 

Andy sat down again, and began to consider his hands 


22 FREE RANGE FANNING 

once more. ‘There’s something wrong—something dirty 
about this life.” 

“Is there?” Uncle Jasper leaned across the table, and 
once again the old ghost of a hope was flickering behind 
his eyes. “Wash off the dirt with soap, then.” 

“Soap won’t touch some kinds of dirt. Uncle Jas, I’m 
sick inside.” 

A picture often recurred to Jasper Fanning of the lit¬ 
tle boy he had first seen, straight, handsome—^too hand¬ 
some. It came home to him now, and he winked his 
eyes hard. 

“Who’s been talkin’ to you?” 

He thought of the grinning men of the saloon; the hid¬ 
den words. Somebody might have gone out and insulted 
Andy to his face for the first time. There had been 
plenty of insults in the past two years, since Andy could 
pretend to manhood, but none that might not be over¬ 
looked. “Who’s been talkin’ to you?” repeated Uncle 
Jasper. “Confound that Buck Heath! He’s the cause 
of all the trouble!” 

“Buck Heath! Who’s he ? Oh, I remember. What’s 
he got to do with the rotten life we lead here. Uncle 
Jas?” 

“So?” said the old man slowly. “He ain’t nothin’?” 

“Bah!” remarked Andy. “You want me to go out 
and fight him? I won’t. I got no love for fighting. 
It doesn’t buy me anything. I don’t like to talk to peo¬ 
ple when they’re mad. Makes me sort of sickish.” 

“Heaven above 1 ” the older man invoked. “Ain’t you 
got shame? My blood in you, too!” 

“Don’t talk like that,” said Andy with a certain amount 
of reserve which was not natural to him. “You bother 
me. I want a little silence and a chance to think things 


ANDY EXAMINES HIS HANDS 


23 

out. There’s something wrong in the way I’ve been 
living.” 

You’re the last to find it out.” 

‘Tf you keep this up I’m going to take a walk so I can 
have quiet.”' 

‘‘You’ll sit there, son, till I’m through with you. Now, 
Andrew, these years I’ve been savin’ up for this moment 
when I was sure that-” 

To his unutterable astonishment Andy rose and stepped 
between him and the door. “Uncle Jas,” he said, “mostly 
I got a lot of respect for you and what you think. To¬ 
night I don’t care what you or anybody else has to say. 
Just one thing matters. I feel I’ve been living in the 
dirt. I’m going out and see what’s wrong. Good 
night.” 



CHAPTER III 


IN THE SADDLE 

U NCLE JAS was completely bowled over. Over 
against the wall as the door closed he was saying 
to himself: ‘‘What’s happened? What’s happened?” 
As far as he could make out his nephew retained very 
little fear of the authority of Jasper Lanning. 

One thing became clear to the old man. There had 
to be a decision between his nephew and some full-grown 
man, otherwise Andy was very apt to grow up into a 
sneaking coward. And in the matter of a contest Jasper 
could not imagine a better trial horse than Buck Heath. 
For Buck was known to be violent with his hands, but 
he was not likely to draw his gun, and, more than this, 
he might even be bluffed down without making a show 
of a fight. Uncle Jasper left his house supperless, and 
struck down the street until he came to the saloon. 

He found Buck Heath warming to his work, resting 
both elbows on the bar. Bill Dozier was with him, Bill 
who was the black sheep in the fine old Dozier family. 
His brother, Hal Dozier, was by many odds the most 
respected and the most feared man in the region, but of 
all the good Dozier qualities Bill inherited only their 
fighting capacity. He fought; he loved trouble; and for 
that reason, and not because he needed the money, he 
was now acting as a deputy sheriff. He was jesting with 
Buck Heath in a rather superior manner, half contemptu¬ 
ous, half amused by Buck’s alcoholic swaggerings. And 
Buck was just sober enough to perceive that he was being 


IN THE SADDLE 


25 

held lightly. He hated Dozier for that treatment, but 
he feared him too much to take open offense. It was at 
this opportune moment that old man Lanning, apparently 
half out of breath, touched Buck on the elbow. 

As Buck turned with a surly '‘What the damation?’' 
the other whispered: "Be on your way, Buck. Get out 
of town, and get out of trouble. My boy hears you been 
talkin' about him, and he allows as how he’ll get you. 
He’s out for you now.” 

The fumes cleared sufficiently from Buck Heath’s mind 
to allow him to remember that Jasper Tanning’s boy was 
no other than the milk-blooded Andy. He told Jasper 
to lead his boy on. There was a reception committee 
waiting for him there in the person of one Buck Heath. 

"Don’t be a fool. Buck,” said Jasper, glancing over his 
shoulder. "Don’t you know that Andy’s a crazy, man- 
killin’ fool when he gets started ? And he’s out for blood 
now. You just slide out of town and come back when 
his blood’s cooled down.” 

Buck Heath took another drink from the bottle in his 
pocket, and then regarded Jasper moodily. "Partner,” 
he declared gloomily, putting his hand on the shoulder of 
Jasper, "maybe Andy’s a man-eater, but I’m a regular 
Andy-eater, and here’s the place where I go and get my 
feed. Lemme loose!” 

He kicked open the door of the saloon. "Where is 
he?” demanded the roaring Andy-eater. Less savagely, 
he went on: "I’m lookin’ for my meat 1” 

Jasper Lanning and Bill Dozier exchanged glances of 
understanding. "Partly drunk, but mostly yaller,” ob¬ 
served Bill Dozier. "Soon as the air cools him off out¬ 
side he’ll mount his hoss and get on his way. But, say, 
is your boy really out for his scalp?” 


26 FREE RANGE LANNING 

“Looks that way,” declared Jasper with tolerable 
gravity. 

“I didn’t know he was that kind,” said Bill Dozier. 
And Jasper flushed, for the imputation was clear. They 
went together to the window and looked out. 

It appeared that Bill Dozier was right. After stand¬ 
ing in the middle of the street in the twilight for a mo¬ 
ment, Buck Heath turned and went straight for his horse. 
A low murmur passed around the saloon, for other men 
were at the windows watching. They had heard Buck’s 
talk earlier in the day, and they growled as they saw him 
turn tail. He would have no pleasant reception when 
he next returned to Martindale. 

Two moments more and Buck would have been on his 
horse, but in those two moments luck took a hand. 
Around the comer came Andrew Banning with his head 
bowed in thought. At once a roar went up from every 
throat in the saloon: ‘There’s your man. Go to him 1” 

Buck Heath turned from his horse; Andrew lifted his 
head. They were face to face, and it was hard to tell 
to which one of them the other was the least welcome. 
But Andrew spoke first. A thick silence had fallen in 
the saloon. Most of the onlookers wore careless smiles, 
for the caliber of these two was known, and no one ex¬ 
pected violence; but Jasper Banning, at the door, stood 
with a sick face. He was praying in the silence. 

Every one could hear Andrew say: “I hear you’ve 
been making a talk about me. Buck?” 

It was a fair enough opening. The blood ran more 
freely in the veins of Jasper. Perhaps the quiet of his 
boy had not been altogether the quiet of cowardice. 

“Aw,” answered Buck Heath, “don’t you be takin’ 
everything you hear for gospel. What kind of talk do 
you mean?” 


IN THE SADDLE 


27. 

“He’s layin’ down,” said Bill Dozier, and his Voice was 
soft but audible in the saloon. “The skunk!” 

“I was about to say,” said Andrew, “that I think you 
had no cause for talk. I’ve done you no harm, Buck.” 

The hush in the saloon became thicker; eyes of pity 
turned on that proved man, Jasper Banning. He had 
bowed his head. And the words of the younger man 
had an instant effect on Buck Heath. They seemed to 
infuriate him. 

“You’ve done me no harm?” he echoed. He let his 
voice out; he even glanced back and took pleasurable 
note of the crowded faces behind the dim windows of 
the saloon. Just then Geary, the saloon keeper, lighted 
one of the big lamps, and at once all the faces at the 
windows became black silhouettes. “You done me no 
harm?” repeated Buck Heath. “Ain’t you been goin’ 
about makin’ a talk that you was after me? Well, son, 
here I am. Now let’s see you eat!” 

“I’ve said nothing about you,” declared Andy. There 
was a groan from the saloon. Once more all eyes flashed 
across to Jasper Banning. 

“Bah!” snorted Buck Heath, and raised his hand. To 
crown the horror, the other stepped back. A little puff 
of alkali dust attested the movement. 

“I’ll tell you,” roared Buck, “you ain’t fittin’ for a 
man’s hand to touch, you ain’t. A hosswhip is more 
your style.” 

From the pommel of his saddle he snatched his quirt. 
It whirled, hummed in the air, and then cracked on the 
shoulders of Andrew. In the dimness of the saloon door 
a gun flashed in the hand of Jasper Banning. It was a 
swift draw, but he was not in time to shoot, for Andy, 
with a cry, ducked in under the whip as it raised for 
the second blow and grappled with Buck Heath. They 


28 


FREE RANGE FANNING 


swayed, then separated as though they had been tom 
apart. But the instant of contact had told Andy a hun¬ 
dred things. He was much smaller than the other, but 
he knew that he was far and away stronger after that 
grapple. It cleared his brain, and his nerves ceased 
jumping. 

‘Keep off,” he said. “Fve no wish to harm you.” 

“You houn’ dog!” yelled Buck, and leaped in with a 
driving fist. 

It bounced off the shoulder of Andrew. At the same 
time he saw those banked heads at the windows of the 
saloon, and knew it was a trap for him. All the scorn 
and the grief which had been piling up in him, all the 
cold hurt went into the effort as he stepped in and snapped 
his fist into the face of Buck Heath. He rose with the 
blow; all his energy, from wrist to instep, was in that 
lifting drive. Then there was a jarring impact that made 
his arm numb to the shoulder. Buck Heath looked 
blankly at him, wavered, and pitched loosely forward on 
his face. And his head bounced back as it struck the 
ground. It was a horrible thing to see, but it brought 
one wild yell of joy from the saloon—^the voice of Jasper 
Fanning. 

Andrew had dropped to his knees and turned the body 
upon its back. The stone had been half buried in the 
dust, but it had cut a deep, ragged gash on the forehead 
of Buck. His eyes were open, glazed; his mouth sagged; 
and as the first panic seized Andy he fumbled at the heart 
of the senseless man and felt no beat. 

“Dead!” exclaimed Andy, starting to his feet. Men 
were running toward him from the saloon, and their 
eagerness made him see a picture he had once seen before. 
A man standing in the middle of a courtroom; the place 


IN THE SADDLE 


29 

crowded; the judge speaking from behind the desk: 
“-to be hanged by the neck until- 

A revolver came into the hand of Andrew. And when 
he found his voice it was as thin and high as the voice 
of a girl, for there was a snapping tension in it. 

“Stop!” he called. The scattering line stopped like 
horses thrown back on their haunches by jerked bridle 
reins. “And don’t make no move,” continued Andy, 
gathering the reins of Buck’s horse behind him. A blan¬ 
ket of silence had dropped on the street. 

“The first gent that shows metal,” said Andy, ‘T’ll 
drill him. Keep steady 1” 

He turned and flashed into the saddle. Once more 
his gun covered them. He found his mind working 
swiftly, calmly. His knees pressed the long holster of 
an old-fashioned rifle. He knew that make of gun from, 
toe to foresight; he could assemble it in the dark. 

“You, Perkins I Get your hands away from your hip. 
Higher, blast you 1” 

He was obeyed. His voice was still thin, but it kept 
that line of hands high above their heads. When he 
moved his gun the whole line winced; it was as if his 
will were communicated to them on electric currents. He 
sent his horse into a walk; into a trot; then dropped along 
the saddle, and was plunging at full speed down the 
street, leaving a trail of sharp alkali dust behind him and 
a long, tingling yell. 




CHAPTER IV 


BILL TAKES THE TRAIL 

O NLY one man in the crowd was old enough to rec¬ 
ognize that yell, and the one man was Jasper Lan* 
ning. A great, singing happiness filled his heart and his 
throat. But the shouting of the men as they tumbled 
into their saddles cleared his brain. He called to Deputy 
Bill Dozier, who was kneeling beside the prostrate form 
of Buck Heath: “Call ’em off, Bill. Call ’em off, or, 
by the Lord, I’ll take a hand in this! He done it in self- 
defense. He didn’t even pull a gun on Buck. Bill, call 
’em off 1” 

And Bill did it most effectually. He straightened, and 
then got up. “Some of you fools get some sense, will 
you?” he called. “Buck ain’t dead; he’s just knocked 
out!” 

It brought them back, a shame-faced crew, laughing 
at each other. “Where’s a doctor?” demanded Bill 
Dozier. 

Some one who had an inkling of how wounds should 
be cared for was instantly at work over Buck. “He’s 
not dead,” pronounced this authority, “but he’s danged 
close to it. Fractured skull, that’s what he’s got. And 
a fractured jaw, too, looks to me. Yep, you can hear 
the bone grate!” 

Jasper Banning was in the midst of a joyous mono¬ 
logue. “You seen it, boys? One punch done it. That’s 
what the Lannings are—the one-punch kind. And you 
seen him get to his gun? Handy! Lord, but it done 


BILL TAKES THE TRAIL . 31 

me good to see him mosey that piece of iron off’n his 
hip. And you looked sick, Gus, when he had you cov¬ 
ered. What was it you said about my boy and nerve 
to-day ? Maybe you’ve forgot. Well, I’ll promise you 
I won’t never tell him. Neat, wasn’t it? Clean get¬ 
away. See him take that saddle? Where was you with 
your gat, Joe ? Nowhere! Looked to me like-” 

The voice of Bill Dozier broke in: 'T want a posse. 
Who’ll ride with Bill Dozier to-night ?” 

It sobered Jasper Lanning. “What d’you mean by 
that?” he asked. “Didn’t the boy fight clean?” 

“Maybe,” admitted Dozier. “But Buck may kick out. 
And if he dies whey’s got to be a judge talk to your boy. 
Come on. 1 want volunteers.” 

“Dozier, what’s all this fool talk?” 

“Don’t bother me, Lanning. I got a duty to perform, 
ain’t I? Think I’m going to let ’em say later on that 
anybody done this and then got away from Bill Dozier? 
Not me!” 

“Bill,” said Jasper, “I read in your mind. You’re 
lookin’ for action, and you want to get it out of Andy.” 

“I want nothin’ but to get him back.” 

“Think he’ll let you come close enough to talk? He’ll 
think you want him for murder, that’s what. Keep off 
of this boy. Bill. Let him hear the news; then he’ll come 
back well enough.” 

“You waste my time,” said Bill, “and all the while a 
man that the law wants is puttin’ ground between him 
and Martindale. Now, boys, you hear me talk. Who’s 
with Bill Dozier to bring back this milk-fed kid ?” 

It brought a snarl from Jasper Lanning. “Why don’t 
you go after him by yourself, Dozier? I had your job 
once and I didn’t ask no helpers on it.” 

But Bill Dozier apparently had no liking for a lonely 



FREE RANGE LANNING 


3 ^ 

ride. He made his demand once more, and the volun¬ 
teers came out. There is always a fascination about a 
pursuit, and it acted now to make every one of the crowd 
come close about the deputy. He chose from them wisely, 
for he knew them all. He picked them for the sake of 
their steady hands, their cool heads, and also for their 
horses. A good many offered themselves out of mere 
shame, but Bill Dozier knew them, and not one was in¬ 
cluded. In five minutes he had selected five sturdy men, 
and every one of the five was a man whose name was 
known. 

They went down the street of Martindale without 
shouting and at a steady lope which their horses could 
keep up indefinitely. Old Jasper followed them to the 
end of the village and kept on watching through the dusk 
until the six horsemen loomed on the hill beyond against 
the sky line. They were still cantering, and they rode 
close together like a tireless pack of wolves. After this 
old Jasper went back to his house, and when the door 
closed behind him a lonely echo went through the place. 

‘‘BahT’ said Jasper. ‘T’m getting softT’ 

In the meantime the posse went on, regardless of direc¬ 
tion. There were only two possible paths for a horse¬ 
man out of Martindale; east and west the mountains 
blocked the way, and young Tanning had started north. 
Straight ahead of them the mountains shot up on either 
side of Grant’s Pass, and toward this natural landmark 
Bill Dozier led the way. Not that he expected to have 
to travel as far as this. He felt fairly certain that the 
fugitive would ride out his horse at full speed, and then 
he would camp for the night and make a fire. 

Andrew Tanning was town bred and soft of skin from 
the work at the forge. When the biting night air got 
through his clothes he would need warmth from a fire. 


BILL TAKES THE TRAIL 


33 

Bill Dozier led on his men for three hours at a steady 
pace until they came to Sullivan’s ranch house in the val¬ 
ley. The place was dark, but the deputy threw a loose 
circle of his men around the house, and then knocked at 
the front door. Old man Sullivan answered in his bare 
feet. Did he know of the passing of young Lanning? 
Not only that, but he had sold Andrew a horse. It 
seemed that Andrew was making a hurried trip; that 
Buck Heath had loaned him his horse for the first leg of 
it, and that Buck would call later for the animal. It had 
sounded strange, but Sullivan was not there to ask ques¬ 
tions. He had led Andrew to the corral and told him 
to make his choice. 

“There was an old pinto in there,’’ said Sullivan, “all 
leather in that boss. You know him, Joe. Well, the 
boy runs his eye over the bunch, and then picks pinto 
right off. I said he wasn’t for sale, but he wouldn’t take 
anything else. I figured a stiff price, and then added a 
hundred to it. Lanning didn’t wink. He took the horse, 
but he didn’t pay cash. Told me I’d have to trust him.” 

Bill Dozier bade Sullivan farewell, gathered his five 
before the house, and made them a speech. Bill had a 
long, lean face, a misty eye, and a pair of drooping, sad 
mustaches. As Jasper Lanning once said: “Bill Dozier 
always looked like he was just away from a funeral or 
just goin’ to one.” This night the dull eye of Bill was 
alight. 

“Gents,” he said, “maybe you-all is disappointed. I 
heard some talk cornin’ up here that maybe the boy had 
laid over for the night in Sullivan’s house. Which he 
may be a fool, but he sure ain’t a plumb fool. But, 
speakin’ personal, this trail looks more and more inter¬ 
estin’ to me. Here he’s left Buck’s boss, so he ain’t 
exactly a boss thief—^yet. And he’s promised to pay for 


FREE RANGE FANNING 


34 

pinto, so that don’t make him a crook. But when pinto 
gives out Andy’ll be in country where he mostly ain’t 
known. He can’t take things on trust, and he’ll mostly 
take ’em, anyway. Boys, looks to me like we was after 
the real article. Anybody weakenin’ ?” 

It was suggested that the boy would be overtaken be¬ 
fore pinto gave out; it was even suggested that this wait¬ 
ing for Andrew Fanning to commit a crime was peril¬ 
ously like forcing him to become a criminal. To all of 
this the deputy listened sadly, combing his mustaches. 
The hunger for the man hunt is like the hunger for food, 
and Bill Dozier had been starved for many a day. When 
he stood before the saloon, with his arms held above his 
head like the rest of the crowd, he had sensed many pos¬ 
sibilities in young Fanning, and he was more and more 
determined as the trail wore on to develop the chances 
to the uttermost. 

“Partner,” said Bill to the last speaker, “ain’t we 
makin’ all the speed we can? Ain’t it what I want to 
come up to the fool l|id and grab him before he makes 
a boss thief or somethin’ out of himself? You gents 
feed your bosses the spur and leave the thinkin’ to me. 
I got a pile of hunches.” 

There was no questioning of such a known man as 
Bill Dozier. The six went rattling up the valley at a 
smart pace. Yet Andjts change of horses at Sullivan’s 
place changed the entire problem. He had ridden his 
first mount to a stagger at full speed, and it was to be 
expected that, having built up a comfortable lead, he 
would settle his second horse to a steady pace and main¬ 
tain it. 

All night the six went on, with Bill Dozier’s long- 
striding chestnut setting the pace. He made no effort 
toward a spurt now. Andrew Fanning led them by a 


BILL 'TAKES THE TRAIL 35 

full hour’s riding on a comparatively fresh horse, and, 
unless he were foolish enough to indulge in another wild 
spurt, they could not wear him down in this first stage 
of the journey. There was only the chance that he would 
build a fire recklessly near to the trail, but still they came 
to no sign of light*, and then the dawn broke and Bill 
Dozief found unmistakable signs of a trotting horse 
which went straight up the valley. There were no other 
fresh tracks pointing in the same direction, and this must 
be Andy’s horse. And the fact that he was trotting told 
many things. He was certainly saving his mount for a 
long grind. Bill Dozier looked about at his men in the 
gray morning. They were a hard-faced lot; he had not 
picked them for tenderness. They were weary now, but 
the fugitive must be still wearier, for he had fear to keep 
him company and burden his shoulders. 

And now they came to a surprising break in the trail. 
It twisted from the floor of the valley up a steep slope, 
crossed the low crest of the hills, dipped into a ravine 
and out again, and finally came out above a broad and 
open valley. 

■ "‘What does he mean,” said Bill Dozier aloud, “by 
breakin’ for Jack Merchant’s house?” ' 


CHAPTER V: 


FEAR OR IRON DUST 

T he yell with which Andrew Lanning had shot out 
of Martindale, and which only Jasper Lanning had 
recognized, was no more startling to the men of the vil¬ 
lage than it was to Andrew himself. Mingled in an 
ecstasy of emotion, there was fear, hate, anger, grief, and 
the joy of freedom in that cry; but it froze the marrow 
of Andy’s bones to hear it. 

Fear, most of all, was driving him out of the village. 
Just as he rushed around the bend of the street he looked 
back to the crowd of men tumbling upon their horses; 
every hand there would be against him. He knew them. 
He ran over their names and faces. Thirty seconds be¬ 
fore he would rather have walked on the edge of a cliff 
than rouse the anger of a single one among these men, 
and now, by one blow, he had started them all after him. 

Once, as he topped the rise, the folly of attempting 
to escape from their long-proved cunning made him draw 
in on the rein a little; but the horse only snorted and 
shook his head and burst into a greater effort of speed. 
After all, the horse was right, Andy decided. For the 
moment he thought of turning and facing that crowd, 
but he remembered stories about men who had killed 
the enemy in fair fight, but who had been tried by a mob 
jury and strung to the nearest tree. 

Any sane man might have told Andrew that those 
days were some distance in the past, but Andy made no 
distinction between periods. He knew the most excit- 


FEAR OR IRON DUST 


37. 

ing events which had happened around Martindale in the 
past fifty years, and he saw no difference between one 
generation and the next. In fact, he was not given to 
sifting evidence. With Uncle Jasper to manage his 
affairs he had had little to do wdth men and their ways, 
and his small contact with people in the blacksmith shop, 
outside of purely business dealings, had all gone to con¬ 
vince him that men near Martindale were a stark and 
terrible lot. 

Was not Uncle Jasper himself continually dinning into 
his ears the terrible possibilities of trouble? Was not 
Uncle Jasper, even in his old age, when no one but a 
greaser would dream of lifting a hand against him, re¬ 
ligiously exacting in his hour or more of gun exercise 
each day? Did not Uncle Jasper force Andy to go 
through the same maneuvers for twice as long between 
sunset and sunrise? And why all these precautions and 
endless preparations if these men of Martindale were not 
killers ? 

It might have occurred to Andy that no one had 
been killed in recent months, but it did not occur. He 
was thinking back to the stories of Jasper, when Mar¬ 
tindale, through a period of one bloody six months, had 
averaged over two killings a day. That was in a period 
when a gold-rush population clogged the streets and 
bulged the saloons. But still Andy was unable to dis¬ 
tinguish between past and present. It might seem strange 
that he could have lived so long among these people with¬ 
out knowing them better, but Andy had taken from his 
mother a little strain of shyness. He never opened his 
mind to other people, and they really never opened them¬ 
selves to Andy Tanning. The men of Martindale wore 
guns, and the conclusion had always been apparent to 


FREE RANGE FANNING 


38 

Andy that they wore guns because, in a pinch, they were 
ready to kill men. 

And Andy Fanning, with a sob in his throat and his 
eyes drawn to glinting points, sent his horse rushing 
down the valley. 

The fear of wild beasts is terrible enough, and there 
are few horrors as great as the terror which the criminal 
feels when he hears the bloodhounds crying down his 
trail; but of all fears there is none like the fear of man 
for man. Because it is intelligence following intelli¬ 
gence. If the pursued conceives the most adroit plan 
with his hard-working imagination he can never be sure 
that one of his enemies may not reach a similar con¬ 
clusion. 

To Andy Fanning, as fear whipped him north out of 
Martindale, there seemed no pleasure or safety in the 
world except in the speed of his horse and the whir of 
the air against his face. When that speed faltered he 
went to the quirt. He spurred mercilessly. Yet he had 
ridden his horse out to a stagger before he reached old 
Sullivan’s place. Only when the forefeet of the mustang 
began to pound did he realize his folly in exhausting his 
horse when the race was hardly begun. He went into 
the ranch house to get a new mount. 

He had seen old Sullivan many times before, but he 
had never seen him with such eyes. The pointed face 
of the old man held a wealth of cunning and knowledge. 
When he opened the door he stood for a long moment 
simply looking at Andy and saying nothing, and for the 
space of one or two sickening heartbeats it seemed to 
Andy that the news must have already reached the ranch 
house. Knowing that this was impossible, he steadied 
himself with a great effort. It was simply the habitual 
silence of Sullivan, and not a suspicion. After a mo- 


FEAR OR IRON DUST 


39 

ment they were out in the corral looking over the horses 
with the aid of a lantern. 

There was nothing dangerous in that adventure, but 
when Andy turned his back on the house and started 
again up the valley his nerves were singing. He re¬ 
hearsed the cock-and-bull story he had stammered out 
to Sullivan. What if the shrewd old fellow had read 
everything between the lines? 

The muscles of Andy’s back quivered in hysterical 
expectation of the bullet that might strike among them. 
And then the kind darkness settled around him. 

When he was calmer he would rebuild the scene with 
Sullivan with more truth. He realized that he had played 
his part well—astonishingly well. His voice had not 
quivered. His eye had met that of the old rancher every 
moment. His hand had been as steady as iron. 

Something that Uncle Jasper had said recurred to him, 
something about iron dust. He felt now that there was 
indeed a strong, hard metal in him; fear had put it there 
—or was it fear itself ? Was it not fear that had brought 
the gun into his hand so easily when the crowd rushed 
him from the door of the saloon? Was it not fear that 
had made his nerves so rocklike as he faced that crowd 
and made his get-away? 

He was on one side now, and the world was on the 
other. Fie turned in the saddle anc} probed the thick 
blackness with his eyes; then he sent the pinto on at an 
easy, ground-devouring lope. Sometimes, as the ravine 
narrowed, the close walls made the creaking of the sad¬ 
dle leather loud in his ears, and the puffing of pinto, who 
hated work; sometimes the hoofs scuffed noisily through 
gravel; but usually the soft sand muffled the noise of 
hoofs, and there was a silence as dense as the night 
around Andy Fanning. 


40 


FREE RANGE LANNING 


Thinking back, he felt that it was all absurd and dream¬ 
like. He had never hurt a man before in his life. Mar- 
tindale knew it. Why could he not go back, face them, 
give up his gun, wait for the law to speak ? 

But when he thought of this he thought a moment 
later of a crowd rushing their horses through the night, 
leaning over their saddles to break the wind more easily, 
and all ready to kill on this man trail. 

All at once a great hate welled up in him, and he went 
on with gritting teeth. 

It was out of this anger, oddly enough, that the 
memory of the girl came to him. She was like the fall¬ 
ing of this starlight, pure, aloof, and strange and gentle. 
It seemed to Andrew Banning that the instant of seeing 
her outweighed the rest of his life, but he would never 
see her again. He began to think with the yearning of 
a boy—foolish thoughts. If he could make a bargain 
with those who followed him. If he could make them let 
him have time to see her for a moment he would go on 
and he would attempt no trick to get away. But how 
could he see her, even if Bill Dozier and his men allowed 
it? If he saw her what would he say to her? It would 
not be necessary to speak. One glance would be enough. 
He felt that he could carry away a treasure to last a 
lifetime in another glance. 

But, sooner or later. Bill Dozier would reach him. 
Why not sooner? Why not take the chance, ride to 
John Merchant’s ranch, break a way to the room where 
the girl slept this night, smash open the door, look at her 
once, and then fight his way out ? 

Another time such a thing would make him shudder. 
But what place has modesty when a man flees for his life? 

He swung out of the ravine and headed across the hills. 
From the crest the valley was broad and dark below him, 


FEAR OR IRON DUST 


41 


and on the opposite side the hills were blacker still. He 
let pinto go down the steep slope at a walk, for there is 
nothing like a fast pace downhill to tear the heart out 
of a horse. Besides, it came to him after he started, 
were not the men of Bill Dozier apt to miss this sudden 
swinging of the trail? 

In the floor of the valley he sent pinto again into the 
stretching canter, found the road, and went on with a 
thin cloud of the alkali dust about him until the house 
rose suddenly out of the ground, a black mass whose 
gables seemed to look at him like so many heads above 
the treetops. 


CHAPTER VI 

THE MERCHANT HOUSE 


T he house would have been more in place on the main 
street of a town than here in the mountain desert; 
but when the first John Merchant had made his stake and 
could build his home as it pleased him to build, his imagi¬ 
nation harked back to a mid-Victorian model, built of 
wood, with high, pointed roofs, many carved balconies 
and windows, and several towers. These houses habit¬ 
ually seem in need of new paint, and, looking on them, 
one pities the men and women who have lived and died 
there. Such was the house which the first John Mer¬ 
chant built, a grotesque castle of wood. And here the 
second John Merchant lived with his son Charles, whose 
taste had quite outgrown the house. 

But to the uneducated eye of Andrew Tanning it was 
a great and dignified building, something of which the 
whole countryside was proud. They would point it out 
to strangers: ^‘There’s the Merchant house. Can you 
raise that in your home town ?’' 

The way led for a short distance through a grove of 
trees; then, rounding an elbow turn, revealed the full 
view of the house. Andrew reined the pinto under the 
trees to look up at that tall, black mass. It was doubly 
dark against the sky, for now the first streaks of gray 
light were pale along the eastern horizon, and the house 
seemed to tower up into the center of the heavens. Andy 
sighed at the thought of stealing through the great halls 


THE MERCHANT HOUSE 


43 

within. Even if he could find an open window, or if the 
door were unlatched, how co'uld he find the girl ? 

Another thing troubled him. He kept canting his ear 
with eternal expectation of hearing the chorus of many 
hoofs swinging toward him out of the darkness. After 
all, it was not a simple thing to put Bill Dozier off the 
trail. When a horse neighed in one of the corrals Andy 
started violently and laid his finger tips on his revolver 
butt. 

That false alarm determined him to make his attempt 
without further waste of time. He swung from the stir¬ 
rups and went lightly up the front steps. A board 
creaked slightly beneath him, and Andy paused with one 
foot raised. He listened, but there was no stir of alarm 
in the house. Thereafter his footfall was a feathery 
thing that carried him like a shadow to the door. It 
yielded at once under his hand, and, stepping through, he 
found himself lost in utter blackness. 

He closed the door, taking care that the spring did not 
make the lock click, and then stood perfectly motionless, 
listening, probing the dark. 

After a time the shadows gave way before his eyes, 
and he could make out that he was in a hall with lofty 
ceiling. Opposite him there was a faint glimmer; that 
was a big mirror. Something wound down from above 
at a little distance, and he made out that this was the 
stairway. Obviously the bedrooms would be in the sec¬ 
ond story. 

Andy began the ascent. 

He had occasion to bless the thick carpet before he was 
at the head of the stairs; he could have run up if he had 
wished, and never have made a sound. At the edge of 
the second hall he paused again. The sense of people 
surrounded him. That indescribable odor of a house 


44 


FREE RANGE FANNING 


was thick in his nostrils; the scent of cooking, which will 
not out the taint of tobacco smoke. Then directly be¬ 
hind him a man cleared his throat. As though a great 
hand had seized his shoulder and wrenched him down, 
Andy whirled and dropped to his knees, the revolver in 
his hand pointing uneasily here and there like the head 
of a snake laboring to find its enemy. 

But there was nothing in the hall. The voice became 
a murmur, and then Andy knew that it had been some 
man speaking in his sleep. 

At least that room was not the room of the girl. Or 
was she, perhaps, married ? Weak and sick, Andy rested 
his hand against the wall and waited for his brain to clear. 
"‘She won’t be married,” he whispered to himself in the 
darkness. 

But of all those doors up and down the hall, which 
would be hers? There was no reasoning which could 
help him in the midst of that puzzle. He walked to what 
he judged to be the middle of the hall, turned to his right, 
and opened the first door. A hinge creaked, but it was 
no louder than the rustle of silk against silk. 

There were two windows in that room, and each was 
gray with the dawn, but in the room itself the blackness 
was unrelieved. There was the one dim stretch of white, 
which was the covering of the bed; the furniture, the 
chairs, and the table were half merged with the shadows 
around them, and they were as vague as reflections in 
muddy water. Andy slipped across the floor, evaded a 
chair by instinct rather than by sight, and leaned over 
the bed. It was a man, as he could tell by the heavy 
breathing; yet he leaned closer in a vain effort to make 
surer by the use of his eyes. 

Then something changed in the face of the man in the 
bed. It was an indescribable change. It was in effect 


THE MERCHANT HOUSE 


45 

like the change which comes in the face of one we are 
talking to when we feel the thought in his mind with¬ 
out noting a single change of muscles; but Andrew knew 
that the man in the bed had opened his eyes. Before 
he could straighten or stir hands were thrown up. One 
struck at his face, and the fingers were stiff; one arm was 
cast over his shoulders, and Andy heard the intake of 
breath which precedes a shriek. Not a long interval— 
no more, say, than the space required for the lash of a 
snapping blacksnake to flick back on itself—^but in that 
interim the hands of Andy were buried in the throat of 
his victim. 

His fingers, accustomed to the sway and quiver of 
eight-pound hammers and fourteen-pound sledges, sank 
through the flesh and found the windpipe. And the 
hands of the other grappled at his wrists, smashed into 
his face. Andy could have laughed at the effort. He 
jammed the shin of his right leg just above the knees 
of the other, and at once the writhing body was quiet. 
With all of his blood turned to ice, Andy found, what he 
had discovered when he faced the crowd in Martindale, 
that his nerves did not jump and that his heart, instead 
of trembling, merely beat with greater pulses. Fear 
filled him as wine fills a cup, but it cleared his brain; it 
sent a tremendous nervous power thrilling in his wrists 
and elbows. All the while he was watching mercilessly 
for the cessation of the struggles. And when the wrench¬ 
ing at his forearms ceased he instantly relaxed his grip. 

For a time there was a harsh sound filling the room, 
the rough intake of the man's breath; he was for the 
time being paralyzed and incapable of any effort except 
the effort to fill his lungs. By the glint of the metal 
work about the bits Andy made out two bridles hanging 
on the wall near the bed. Taking them down, he worked 


46 FREE RANGE FANNING 

swiftly. As soon as the fellow on the bed would have 
his breath he would scream. Yet the time sufficed Andy; 
he had his knife out, flicked the blade open, and cut off 
the long reins of the bridles. Then he went back to the 
bed and shoved the cold muzzle of his revolver into the 
throat of the other. 

There was a tremor through the whole body of the 
man, and Andy knew that at that moment the senses of 
his victim had cleared. 

He leaned close to the ear of the man and whispered: 
“Don’t make no loud talk, partner. Keep cool and 
steady. I don’t aim to hurt you unless you play the fool.” 

Instantly the man answered in a similar whisper, 
though it was broken with panting: “Get that coat of 
mine out the closet. There—the door is open. You’ll 
find my wallet in the inside pocket and about all you can 
want will be in it.” 

“That’s the way,” reassured Andy. “Keep your head 
and use sense. But it isn’t the coin I want. You’ve got 
a red-headed girl in this house. Where’s her room?” 

His hand which held the revolver was resting on the 
breast of the man, and he felt the heart of the other leap. 
Then there was a current of curses, a swift hissing of 
invective. And suddenly it came over Andy that since 
he had killed one man, as he thought, the penalty would 
be no greater if he killed ten. All at once the life of this 
prostrate fellow on the bed was nothing to him. 

When he^cut into that profanity he meant what he said. 
Partner, I ve got a pull on this trigger. Another ounce 
■will send you right up against eternity. Now cut out 
that line of chatter and hear me talk. I don’t mean the 
girl any harm, but I’ve got to see her.” 

“You—^you cur-” 

“Easy,” said Andy. “That took you a long step on 



THE MERCHANT HOUSE 


47i 

your way. There’s a slug in this gun just trembling to 
get at you. And I tell you honest, friend, I’d as soon 
drill you as turn around. Now tell me where that girl’s 
room is ?” 

^‘Anne Withero?” Only his breathing was heard for 
a moment. Then: “Two doors down, on this side of 
the hall. If you lay a hand on her I’ll live to-” 

“Partner, so help me Heaven, I wouldn’t touch a lock 
of her hair. Now lie easy while I make sure of you.” 

And he promptly trussed the other in the bridle reins. 
Out of a pillow case folded hard he made a gag and tied 
it into the mouth of the man. Then he ran his hands 
over the straps ; they were drawn taut. 

“If you make any noise,” he warned the other, “I’ll 
come back to find out why. S’long.” 



CHAPTER VII 


‘‘betwixt and between” 

E very moment was bringing on the dawn more 
swiftly, and the eyes of Andy were growing more 
accustomed to the gloom in the house. He found the 
door of the girl’s room at once. When he entered he 
had only to pause a moment before he had all the details 
clearly in mind. Other senses than that of sight in¬ 
formed him in her room. There was in the gray gloom 
a touch of fragrance such as blows out of gardens across 
a road; yet here the air was perfectly quiet and chill. 
The dawn advanced. A lesser place of darkness shone 
in the gloom across the back of a chair. He touched it; 
something silken and as light as the air. He gathered it 
into his hand, and it was reduced to a small thing against 
his palm. 

But all that he could make out was a faint touch of 
color against the pillow—and that would be her hair. 
Then with astonishing clearness he saw her hand resting 
against her breast. Andy stood for a moment with his 
eyes closed, a great tenderness falling around him. The 
hush kept deepening, and the sense of the girl drew out 
to him as if a light were brightening about her. It was 
a holy moment to Andy. There was a feeling that a 
third presence was hovering about him, seeing and under¬ 
standing, and that presence was God, he knew. 

He stepped back to the table against the wall, took the 
chimney from the lamp, and flicked a match along his 
trousers, for in that way a match would make the least 


‘^BETWIXT AND BETWEEN'^ 49 

noise. Yet to the hair-trigger nerves of Andy the spurt 
and flare of the match was like the explosion of a gun. 
He lighted the lamp, turned down the wick, and replaced 
the chimney. Then he turned as though some one had 
shouted behind him. He whirled as he had whirled in 
the hall, crouching, and he found himself looking straight 
into the eyes of the girl as she sat up in bed. 

Truly he did not see her face at first, but only the fear 
in it, parting her lips and widening her eyes. The glow 
of the lamp caught on her hair and turned it into a red- 
gold river of light that splashed on white shoulders, and 
then disappeared behind her. A moment before the 
room had been nothing—a part of the gray ness of the 
dawn—but the lighting of the lamp had shut out the 
rest of the world, and all the mind, all the soul of Andy 
was cupped and poured against that tide of bronze light 
and against the face of the girl. She did not speak; her 
only movement was to drag up the coverlet of the bed 
and hold it against the base of her throat. 

Andy drew off his hat and stood, crushing it against 
his breast. His hair, wild from the ride, became wilder 
as a morning wind drove through the window and made 
the flame jump in the throat of the lamp. Altogether 
he was a savage figure, and he saw the fear of him go 
into the face of the girl as plainly as though he stood in 
front of a mirror. And it hurt Andy like a bullet tear¬ 
ing through him. 

He stepped a little closer; she winced against the back 
of the bed. 

Then Andy came stock-still. ‘‘Do you know me he 
asked. 

He watched her as. she strove to speak, but if her lips 
stirred they made no sound. It tortured him to see her 
terror, and yet he would not have had her change. This 


FREE RANGE FANNING 


50 

crystal pallor or a flushed joy—in one of the two she 
was most beautiful. 

^‘You saw me in Martindale/' he continued. “I am 
the blacksmith. Do you remember?’' 

She nodded, still watching him with those haunted 
eyes. 

saw you for the split part of a second,” said Andy, 
‘*and you stopped my heart. I’ve come to see you for 
two minutes; I swear I mean you no harm. Will you let 
me have those two minutes for talk?” 

Again she nodded. But he could see that the terror 
was being tempered a little in her face. There was more 
plain excitement behind her eyes. She was beginning to 
think, to wonder. It seemed a natural thing for Andy 
to go forward a pace closer to the bed, but, lest that 
should alarm her, it seemed also natural for him to drop 
upon one knee. It brought the muzzle of the revolver 
jarringly home against the floor. 

The girl heard that sound of metal and it shook her; 
but it requires a very vivid imagination to fear a man 
upon his knees. And now that he was not so tall she 
could look directly into his face, and she saw that he was 
only a boy, not more than two or three years older than 
herself.' For the first time she remembered the sooty 
figure which had stood in the door of the blacksmith 
shop. The white face against the tawny smoke of the 
shop; that had attracted her eyes before. It was the 
same white face now, but subtly changed. A force 
exuded from him; indeed, he seemed neither young nor 
old. Here he was upon his knees. And one wildly ro¬ 
mantic thought brushed through her mind, to be instantly 
dismissed. 

She heard him speaking in a voice not louder than a 
whisper, rapid, distinct; and there was a quality of emo- 


‘‘BETWIXT AND BETWEEN’ 


SI 

tion behind it. She had heard that same quality in the 
voice of great actors—men who knew how to talk from 
the heart, or to seem to talk from the heart. 

“When you came through the town you waked me up 
like a whiplash,” he was saying. “When you left I kept 
thinking about you. Then along came a trouble. I 
killed a man. A posse started after me. It’s on my 
heels. I rode like the wind, for I knew it was life or 
death if they caught me, but I had to see you again. Do 
you understand?” 

A ghost of color was going up her throat, staining her 
cheeks. 

“I had to see you,” repeated. “It’s my last chance. 
To-morrow they may get me. Two hours from now 
they may have me salted away with lead. But before I 
kick out I had to have one more look at you. So I 
swung out of my road and came straight to this house. 
I came up the stairs. I went into a room down the hall 
and made a man tell me where to find you.” 

There was >a flash in the eyes of the girl like the wink 
of sun on a bit of quartz on a far-away hillside, but it cut 
into the speech of Andrew Banning. “He told you 
where to find me ?” she asked in a voice no louder than 
the swift, low voice of Andy. But what a world of 
meaning! What a rush and outpour of contempt and 
scorn I 

“He had a gun shoved into the hollow of his throat,” 
said Andy. “He had to tell—two doors down the 
hall-” 

“It was Charlie!” said the girl softly. She seemed to 
forget her fear. Her head raised as she looked at Andy. 

It made him flush to see her like that. “I came in 
here,” said Andy. “I lighted the lamp to look at you 



FREE RANGE FANNING 


52 

once. I didn't mean to speak to you. But I had to see 
you before I go. Do you believe me?" 

She brooded on him, excited, fearless now. And she 
answered: ‘‘The other man—the one you—why-" 

“The man I killed doesn’t matter," said Andy. “Noth¬ 
ing matters except that I've got this minute here with 
you." 

“But where will you go? How will you escape?" 

“I'll go to death, I guess," said Andy quietly. “But 
I'll have a grin for Satan when he lets me in. I've beat 
'em, even if they catch me." 

“Tell me your name." 

“What's my name? Nothing! And don’t waste time 
on things like that." 

The coverlet dropped from her breast; her hand was 
suspended with stiff fingers. There had been a sound 
as of some one stumbling on the stairway, the unmis¬ 
takable slip of a heel and the recovery; then no more 
sound. Andy was on his feet. She saw his face white, 
and then there was a glitter in his eyes, and she knew 
that the danger was nothing to him. But Anne Withero 
whipped out of her bed. 

“Did you hear?” 

“I tied and gagged him," said Andy, “but he's broken 
loose, and now he's raising the house on the quiet.” 

For an instant they stood listening, staring at each 
other. 

“They—they’re coming up the hall," whispered the 
girl. “Listen!" 

It was no louder than a whisper from without—the 
creak of a board. Andrew Fanning slipped to the door 
and turned the key in the lock. When he rejoined her 
in the middle of the room he gave her the key. 

“Let ’em in if you want to," he said. 



‘‘BETWIXT AND BETWEEN’' 53 

But the girl caught his arm, whispering: “Hide there 
in the closet—among my clothes. Quickly! They—they 
won’t dare come in here!” 

“There’s men coming who’ll dare a lot more than that. 
But they don’t matter. It’s as well here as the next 
place.” 

“You mean you’re not going to try to get away?” 

“Maybe that. Don’t you see that I’m happy, Anne 
Withero?” 

“You’re not afraid?” 

“I’m plumb froze with fear, but with happiness, too.”' 

Looking past him, she saw the knob of the door turn 
slightly, slowly. She caught her breath. 

“There’s still time. You can get out that window 
onto the top of the roof below, then a drop to the ground. 
But hurry before they think to guard that way!” 

“Confound them and the ways they guard! One min¬ 
ute more of you and me and God, Anne.” 

“You’re throwing yourself away!” 

“Stand there like that. With your head high. You’re 
beautiful, Anne. And this is worth dyin’ for!” 

His voice shook her. It was as if she were sobbing. 

“Then go for my sake,” she pleaded. 

“I’ll go for one thing.” 

“Name it! Name it!” 

She began to wring Jier hands, and the lamplight caught 
at her head and she was covered to the waist with the 
ripples of her red-gold hair. Fear had whitened her lips, 
but her eyes were glorious. 

“When you know they’ve blown me to the four winds, 
will you say this thing to yourself: 'He was no good, 
but he loved me.’ Will you say that ?” 

‘T will! I promise you I will!” She was dragging 
him toward the window. 


FREE RANGE FANNING 


54 

“Anne!’’ called a voice suddenly from the hall. 

Andy threw up the window, and, turning toward the 
door, he laughed his defiance and his joy. 

“Hurry!” she was demanding. A great blow fell on 
the door of her room, and at once there was shouting 
in the hall: “Pete, run outside and watch the window!” 

“Will you go ?” cried the girl desperately. 

He turned toward the window. He turned back like 
a flash and swept her close to him. 

“Do you fear me ?” he whispered. 

“No,” said the girl. 

“Will you remember me?” 

“Forever!’^ 

“God bless you,” said Andy as he leaped through the 
window. She saw him take the slope of the roof with 
one stride; she heard the thud of his feet on the ground 
below. Then a yell from without, shrill and high and 
sharp. 

When the door fell with a crash, and three men were 
flung into the room, Charles Merchant saw her standing 
in her nightgown by the open window. Her head was 
flung back against the wall, her eyes closed, and one hand 
was pressed across her lips. 

“He’s out the window. Down around the other way. 
Curse him!” cried Charles Merchant. 

The stampede swept out of the room. Charles was 
beside her. 

She knew that vaguely, and that he was speaking, but 
not until he touched her bare shoulder did she hear the 
words: “Anne, are you unhurt—has—for Heaven’s 
sake speak, Anne. What’s happened ?” 

She reached up and put his hand away. 

“Charles,” she said, “call them back. Don’t let them 
follow him!” 


'BETWIXT AND BETWEEN’’ 


55 

*'Are you mad, dear?” he, asked. 'That murder¬ 
ing-” 

He found a tigress in front of him. 

'Tf they hurt a hair of his head, Charlie, I’m through 
with you. I’ll swear that!” 

It stunned Charles Merchant. And then he went 
stumbling from the room. 

His cow-punchers were out from the bunk house 
already; the guests and his father were saddling or in 
the saddle. 

"Come back!” shouted Charles Merchant. "Don’t fol¬ 
low him. Come back! No guns. He’s done no harm.” 

Two men came around the corner of the house, drag¬ 
ging a limp figure between them. 

"Is this no harm?” they asked. "Look at Pete, and 
then talk.” 

They lowered the tall, limp figure of the man in paja¬ 
mas to the ground; his face was a crimson smear. 

"Is he dead ?” asked Charles Merchant. 

"No move out of him,” they answered. 

Other people, most of them on horseback, were pour¬ 
ing back to learn the meaning of the strange call from 
Charles Merchant. 

"I can’t tell you what I mean,” he was saying in ex¬ 
planation. "But you, dad. I’ll be able to tell you. All 
I can say is that he mustn’t be followed—unless Pete 
here-” 

The eyes of Pete opportunely opened. He looked 
hazily about him. 

"Is he gone?” asked Pete. 

"Yes.” 

"Thank the Lord!” 

"Did you see him? What’s he like?” 

“About seven feet tall. I saw him jump off the roof 




FREE RANGE FANNING 


56 

of the house. I was rigjit under him. Tried to get my 
gun on him while he was sprawling after his jump, but 
he came up like a wild cat and went straight at me. 
Had his fist in my face before I could get my finger on 
the trigger. And then the earth came up and slapped 
me in the face.’’ 

“There he goes!” cried some one. 

The sky was now of a brightness not far from day, 
and, turning east, in the direction pointed out, Charles 
Merchant saw a horseman ride over a hilltop, a black 
form against the coloring horizon. He was moving 
leisurely, keeping his horse at the cattle pony’s lope. 
Presently he dipped away out of sight. 

John Merchant dropped his hand on the shoulder of 
his son. He was a stern man, was John Merchant, and 
his face was not pleasant as Charles turned and looked 
up at it; but if John Merchant was stern, the face of his 
son was the face of a lost soul in torment. 

“What is it?” asked the father. 

“Heaven knows! Not H” 

“Here are more people! What’s this? A night of 
surprise parties ?” 

Six riders came through the trees, rushing their horses, 
and John Merchant saw Bill Dozier’s well-known, lanky 
form in the lead. He brought his horse from a dead run 
to a halt in the space of a single jump and a slide. The 
next moment he was demanding fresh mounts. 

“Can you give ’em to me, Merchant? But what’s all 
this?” 

“You make your little talk,” said Merchant, “and then 
I’ll make mine.” 

“I’m after Andy Fanning. He’s left a gent more dead 
than alive back in Martindale, and I want him. Can 


'‘BETWIXT AND BETWEEN^' 5;^ 

you give me fresh horses for me and my boys, Mer¬ 
chant ?’' 

“But the man wasn’t dead? He wasn’t dead?” cried 
the voice of a girl. The group opened; Bill Dozier found 
himself facing a bright-haired girl wrapped to the throat 
in a long coat, with slippers on her feet. 

“Not dead and not alive,” he answered. “Just be¬ 
twixt and between.” 

“Thank God!” whispered the girl. “Thank God!” 

There was only one man in the group who should not 
have heard that whispered phrase, and that man was 
Charles Merchant. He was standing at her side. 


CHAPTER VIII 
bill's bargain 

I T took less than five minutes for the deputy sheriff to 
mount his men; he himself had the pick of the corral, 
a dusty roan, and, as he drew the cinch taut, he turned to 
find Charles Merchant at his side. 

“Bill,” said the young fellow, “what sort of a man is 
this Banning?” 

“He’s been a covered card, partner,” said Bill Dozier. 
Not since Charles Merchant went away to school had he 
been able to remember the first name of Dozier, and Bill 
Dozier’s lips were twitching behind his faded mustache. 
“He’s been a covered card that seemed pretty good. 
Now he’s in the game, and he looks like the rest of the 
Tannings—a good lump of daring and defiance. Why 
d’youask?’' 

“Are you keen to get him. Bill?” continued Charlie 
Merchant eagerly. 

“I could stand it. Again, why?” 

“You’d like a little gun play with that fellow?” 

“I wouldn’t complain none.” 

“Ah ? One more thing. Could you use a bit of ready 
cash?” 

“I ain’t pressed,” said Bill Dozier, working away be¬ 
hind the eyes of the younger man with his own ferret 
glance. “On the other hand, I ain’t of a savin’ nature.” 

Then he added: “Get it out, Charlie. I think I fol¬ 
low your drift. And you can go as far as you like.” 
He put out his jaw in an ugly way as he said it. 


BILL’S BARGAIN 


59 

‘'It would be worth a lot to me to have this cur done 
for, Bill. You understand?” 

“My time’s short. Talk terms, Charlie.” 

“A thousand.” 

“The price of a fair boss.” 

“Two thousand, old man.” 

“Hoss and trimmin’s.” 

“Three thousand.” 

“Charlie, you seem to forget that we’re talkin' about 
a man and a gun.” 

“Bill, it’s worth five thousand to me.” 

“That’s turkey. Let me have your hand.” 

They shook hands. 

“And if you kill the horses,” said Charles Merchant, 
“you won’t hurt my feelings. But get him!” 

“I’ve got nothing much on him,” said Bill Dozier, 
“but some fools resist arrest.” 

He smiled in a manner that made the other shudder. 
And a moment later the deputy led his men out on the 
trail. 

They were a weary lot by this time, but they had be¬ 
neath the belt several shots of the Merchant whisky which 
Charles had distributed. And they had that still greater 
stimulus—fresh horses running smooth and strong be¬ 
neath them. Another thing had changed. They saw 
their leader. Bill Dozier, working at his revolver and his 
rifle as he rode, looking to the charges, trying the pres¬ 
sure of the triggers, getting the balance of the weapons 
with a peculiar anxiety, and they knew, without a word 
being spoken, that there was small chance of that trail 
ending at anything short of a red mark in the dust. 

It made some of them shrug their shoulders, but here 
again it was proved that Bill Dozier knew the men of 
Martindale, and had picked his posse well. They were 


6 o 


FREE RANGE FANNING 


the common, hard-working variety of cow-puncher, and 
presently the word went among them from the man rid¬ 
ing nearest to Bill that if young Fanning were taken it 
would be worth a hundred dollars to each of them. Two 
months’ pay for two days’ work. That was fair enough. 
They also began to look to their guns. It was not that 
a single one of them could have been bought for a man¬ 
killing at that or any other price, perhaps, but this was 
simply a bonus to carry them along toward what they 
considered an honest duty. 

Nevertheless, it was a different crew that rode over 
the hills away from the Merchant place. There was 
even something different in their riding. They had be¬ 
gun for the sake of the excitement. Now they were 
working carefully, riding with less abandon, jockeying 
their horses, for each man was laboring to be in on the kill. 

They had against them a good horse and a stanch 
horseman. Never had the pinto dodged his share of 
honest running, and this day was no exception. He gave 
himself whole-heartedly to his task, and he stretched the 
legs of the ponies behind him. Yet he had a great handi¬ 
cap. He was tough, but the ranch horses of John Mer¬ 
chant were of the Morgan breed, vicious, a good many 
of them, but solid and wiry and fast enough for any 
purpose—such as clinging to a long trail over hill and 
valley. 

Above all, they came out from a night of rest. Their 
lungs were clean of dust. Their legs were full of run¬ 
ning. And the pinto, for all his courage, could not meet 
that handicap and beat it. 

That truth slowly sank in upon the mind of the fugi¬ 
tive as he put the game little cattle pony into his best 
stride. He tried pinto in the level going. He tried him 
in the rough. And in both conditions the posse gained 


BILL’S BARGAIN 


6 i 


slowly and steadily, until it became apparent to Andrew 
Banning that the deputy held him in the hollow of his 
hand, and in half an hour of stiff galloping could run his 
quarry into the ground whenever he chose. 

Andy turned in the saddle and grinned back at the fol¬ 
lowers. He could distinguish Bill Dozier most distinctly. 
The broad brim of Bill’s hat was blown up stiffly. And 
the sun glinted now and again on those melancholy mus¬ 
taches of his. Andy was puzzled. Bill had horses which 
could outrun the fugitive, and why did he not use them ? 

Almost at once Andy received his answer. 

The deputy sheriff sent his horse into a hard run, and 
then brought him suddenly to a standstill. Looking back, 
Andy saw a rifle pitch to the shoulder of the deputy. It 
was a flashing line of light which focused suddenly in a 
single, glinting dot. That instant something hummed 
evilly beside the ear of Andy. A moment later the report 
came barking and echoing in his ear with the little metal¬ 
lic ring in it which tells of the shiver of a gun barrel. 

That was the beginning of a running fusillade. Tech¬ 
nically these were shots fired to warn the fugitive that 
he was wanted by the law, and to tell him that if he did 
not halt he would be shot at to be killed. But the deputy 
did not waste warnings. He began to shoot to kill. 
And so did the rest of the posse. They saw the deputy’s 
plan at once, and then grinned at it. If they rode down 
in a mob the boy would no doubt surrender. But if they 
goaded him in this manner from a distance he would 
probably attempt to return the fire. And if he fired one 
shot in reply, unwritten law and strong public opinion 
would be on the side of Bill Dozier in killing this crimi¬ 
nal without quarter. In a word, the whisky and the lit¬ 
tle promise of money were each taking effect on the posse. 

They spurted ahead in pairs, halted, and delivered their 


62 


FREE RANGE FANNING 


fire; then the next pair spurted ahead and fired. Every 
moment or so two bullets winged through the air near 
and nearer Andy. It was really a wonder that he was 
not cleanly drilled by a bullet long before that fusillade 
had continued for ten minutes. But it is no easy thing 
to hit a man on a galloping horse when one sits on the 
back of another horse, and that horse heaving from a 
hard run. Moreover, Andy watched, and when the pairs 
halted he made the pinto weave. 

At the first bullet he felt his heart come into his throat. 
At the second he merdy raised his head. At the next 
he smiled, and thereafter he greeted each volley with a 
yell and with a wave of his hat. It was like dancing, 
but greater fun. The cold, still terror was in his heart 
every moment, but yet he felt like laughing, and when 
the posse heard him their own hearts went cold. 

It disturbed their aim. They began to snarl at each 
other, and they also pressed their horses close and closer 
before they even attempted to fire. 

And the result was that Andy, waving his hat, felt it 
twitched sharply in his hand, and then he saw a neat little 
hole clipped out of the very edge of the brim. It was a 
pretty trick to see, until Andy remembered that the thing 
which had nicked that hole would also cut its way through 
him, body and bone. He leaned over the saddle and 
spurred the pinto into his racing gait. 

‘T nicked him!’’ yelled the deputy. “Come on, boys! 
Close in!” 

But within five minutes of racing, Andy drew pinto to 
a sudden halt and raised his rifle. The posse laughed. 
They had been shooting for some time, and always for a 
distance even less than Andy’s; yet not one of their bul¬ 
lets had gone home. So they waved their hats recklessly 
and continued to ride to be in at the death. And every 


BILL’S BARGAIN 63 

one knew that the end of the trail was not far off when 
the fugitive had once begun to turn at bay. 

Andy knew it as well as the rest, and his hand shook 
like a nervous girl’s, whfle the rifle barrel tilted up and 
up, the blue barrel shimmering wickedly. In a frenzy of 
eagerness he tried to line up the sights. It was vain. 
The circle through which he squinted wabbled crazily. 
He saw two of the pursuers spurt ahead, take their posts, 
raise their rifles for a fire which would at least disturb 
his. For the first time they had a stationary target. 

And then, by chance, the circle of Andy’s sight em¬ 
braced the body of a horseman. Instantly the left arm, 
stretching out to support his rifle, became a rock; the 
forefinger of his right hand was as steady as the trigger 
it pressed. It was like shooting at a target. He found 
himself breathing easily. 

It was very strange. Find a man with his sights? 
He could follow his target as though a magnetic power 
attracted his rifle. The weapon seemed to have a voli¬ 
tion of its own. It drifted along with the canter of Bill 
Dozier. With incredible precision the little finger of iron 
inside the circle dwelt in turn on the hat of Bill Dozier, 
on his sandy mustaches, on his fluttering shirt. And 
Andy knew that he had the life of a man under the com¬ 
mand of his forefinger. 

And why not ? He had killed one. Why not a hun¬ 
dred ? 

The punishment would be no greater. And to tempt 
him there was this new mystery, this knowledge that he 
could not mis's. It had been vaguely present in his mind 
when he faced the crowd at Martindale, he remembered 
now. And the same merciless coldness had been in his 
hand when he pressed his gun into the throat of Charles 
Merchant 


64 FREE RANGE FANNING 

He turned his eyes and looked down the guns of the 
two men who had halted. Then, hardly looking at his 
target, he snapped his rifle back to his shoulder and fired. 
He saw Bill Dozier throw up his hands, saw his head 
rock stupidly back and forth, and then the long figure 
toppled to one side. One of the posse rushed alongside 
to catch his leader, but he missed, and Bill, slumping to 
the ground, was trampled underfoot. 


CHAPTER IX 

THE BIRTH OF A DESPERADO 

A t the same time the rifles of the two men of the 
posse rang, but they must have seen the fall of their 
leader, for the shots went wild, and Andy Tanning took 
off his hat and waved to them. But he did not flee again. 
He sat in his saddle with the long rifle balanced across 
the pommel while two thoughts went through his mind. 
One was to stay there and watch. The other was to 
slip the rifle back into the holster and with drawn revolver 
charge the five remaining members of the posse. These 
were now gathering hastily about Bill Dozier. But Andy 
knew their concern was vain. He knew where that bul¬ 
let had driven home, and Bill Dozier would never ride 
again. 

One by one he picked up those five figures with his 
eyes, fighting temptation. He knew that he could not 
miss if he fired again. In five shots he knew that he 
could drop as many men, and within him there was a 
perfect consciousness that they would not hit him when 
they returned the fire. 

He was not filled with exulting courage. He was 
cold with fear. But it was the sort of fear which makes 
a man want to fling himself from a great height. But, 
sitting there calmly in the saddle, he saw a strange thing 
—the five men raising their dead leader and turning back 
toward the direction from which they had come. Not 
once did they look toward the form of Andy Tanning. 
They knew what he could not know, that the gate of the 


66 


FREE RANGE FANNING 


law had been open to this man as a retreat, but the bul¬ 
let which struck down Bill Dozier had closed the gate and 
thrust him out from mercy. He was an outlaw, a leper 
now. Any one who shared his society from this mo¬ 
ment on would fall under the heavy hand of the law. 

But as for running him into the ground, they had lost 
their appetite for such fighting. They had kept up a 
long running fight and gained nothing; but a single shot 
from the fugitive had produced this result. They turned 
now in silence and went back, very much as dogs turn 
and tuck their tails between their legs when the wolf, 
which they have chased away from the precincts of the 
ranch house, feels himself once more safe from the hand 
of man and whirls with a flash of teeth. The sun gleamed 
on the barrel of Andy Tanning’s rifle, and these men 
rode back in silence, feeling that they had witnessed one 
of those prodigies which were becoming fewer and fewer 
and farther and farther between around Martindale— 
the birth of a desperado. 

Andrew watched them skulking off with the body of 
Bill Dozier held upright by a man on either side of the 
horse. He watched them draw off across the hills, still 
with that nervous, almost irresistible impulse to raise on-e 
wild, long cry and spur after them, shooting swift and 
straight over the head of the pinto. But he did not 
move, and now they dropped out of sight. And then, 
looking about him, Andrew Tanning felt how vast were, 
those hills, how wide they stretched, and how small he 
stood among them. He was alone. He was utterly 
alone. He almost wished that Bill Dozier were back at 
the head of the posse hunting for his life. At least, that 
had been a sort of savage company. But now there was 
nothing but the hills and a sky growing pale with heat 
and the patches of olive-gray sagebrush in the distance. 


THE BIRTH OF A DESPERADO 67 

The wind picked up a cloud of dust, molded it into the 
strangely lifelike figure of a horseman, and rushed that 
form across the valley at his left; it melted into thin air, 
as many a man had melted to nothingness in the moun¬ 
tain desert. 

A great melancholy dropped upon Andy. He felt a 
childish weakness; dropping his elbows upon the pom¬ 
mel of the saddle, he buried his face in his hands. In 
that moment he needed desperately something to which 
he could appeal for comfort. In that moment a child of 
ten coming upon him could have “stuck up” Andy with 
a wooden imitation of a gun and driven him without 
resistance back to Martindale. 

The weakness passed slowly. 

He dismounted and looked to the pinto, for the pinto 
had worked hard, and now he stood with his forelegs 
somewhat apart and braced, and his head hung low. 
Every muscle of his body was relaxed, and, like a good 
cattle pony, not knowing what strange and violent exer¬ 
tion might be demanded of him the next moment he made 
the most of this instant of rest. And now the cinches 
were loosened; the sweat was rubbed carefully from him. 
Since he stood sagging to the right side and pointing the 
toe of his off hind foot Andy anxiously lifted that hoof 
to make sure that his horse had not picked up a stone. 
The pinto rewarded him by coming to life and raising 
his head just long enough to gauge and deliver a kick at 
Andy’s head. It missed its mark by the proverbial 
breadth of a hair, and the pinto dropped his head again 
with a grunt of disappointment. 

It made his rider grin with relief, that vicious little 
lemonstration. When the cinches were drawn up again, 
i moment later, the pinto distended his lungs to make a 
dack after the girths were fastened, but Andy put his 


68 


FREE RANGE FANNING 


knee into the refractory ribs and crushed them to the 
breaking point. So the pinto with a sigh expelled his 
breath and allowed the cinching to be properly finished. 
The tender care had for a moment given him a thought 
that this man was no master; but the knee in the ribs 
removed all doubts. And from that moment the pinto 
was ready to die for Andy. 

The rider, after this little exhibition of temper, stepped 
back and looked his horse over more carefully. The 
pinto had many good points. He had ample girth of 
chest at the cinches, where lung capacity is best measured. 
He had rather short forelegs, which promised weight¬ 
carrying power and some endurance, and he had a fine 
pair of sloping shoulders. But his belly was a trifle fine 
drawn, and, though he might stand a drive of a day or 
two admirably, it was very doubtful if he could endure 
a long siege of such life as Andy was apt to live. Also, 
the croup of the pinto sloped down too much, and he had 
a short neck. Andy knew perfectly well that no horse 
with a short neck can run fast for any distance. He 
had chosen the pinto for endurance, and endurance he 
undoubtedly had; but there was no question that he must 
have a horse superior in every respect—a horse capable 
of running his distance and also able to spurt like a 
trained racer for short distances. For many a time in 
his life he would need a horse which could put him out 
of short-shooting distance, and do it quickly. And many 
a time he would face a long grind across mountain and 
desert, and both together. 

There were no illusions in the mind of Andrew Fan¬ 
ning about what lay before him. Uncle Jasper had told 
him too many tales of his own experiences on the trail 
in enemy country. 

‘There’s three things,” the old man had often said. 


THE BIRTH OF A DESPERADO 69 

‘‘that a man needs when he’s in trouble: a gun that’s 
smooth as silk, a boss full of running, and a friend.” 

For the gun Andy had his Colt in the holster, and he 
knew it like his own mind. There were newer models 
and trickier weapons, but none which worked so smoothly 
under the touch of Andy. Thinking of this, he pro¬ 
duced it from the holster with a flick of his fingers. The 
sight had been filed away. When he was a boy in short 
trousers he had learned from Uncle Jasper the two main 
articles of a gun fighter’s creed—^that a revolver must 
be fired by pointing, not sighting, and that there must 
be nothing about it liable to hang in the holster to delay 
the draw. The great idea was to get the gun on your 
man with lightning speed, and then fire from the hip with 
merely a sense of direction to guide the bullet. Just as 
one raises his hand and points the finger. As a rule, 
one will point with astonishing closeness to the object, 
but it needs a wrist of iron, and many a long year of 
practice, to do that accurate pointing when there is a 
.45 gun in the hand. Uncle Jasper had given him that 
training, and he blessed the old man for it now. 

He had a gun, therefore, and one necessity was his. 
Sorely he needed a horse of quality as few men needed 
one. And he needed still more a friend, a haven in time 
of crisis, an adviser in difficulties. And though Andy 
knew that it was death to go among men, he knew also 
that it was death to do without these two things, 

He believed that there was one chance left to him, and 
that was to outdistance the news of the two killings by 
riding straight north. There he would stop at the first 
town, in some manner fill his pockets with money, and 
in some manner find both horse and friend. 

Andrew Tanning was both simple and credulous; but 
it must be remembered that he had led a sheltered life. 


70 


FREE RANGE LANNIKG 


comparatively speaking; he had been brought up between 
a blacksmith shop on the one hand and Uncle Jasper on 
the other, and the gaps in his knowledge of men were 
many and huge. The prime necessity now was speed 
to the northward. So Andy flung himself into the sad¬ 
dle and drove his horse to north at the jogging, rocking 
lope of the cattle pony. 

He was in a shallow basin which luckily pointed in 
the right direction for him. The hills sloped down to it 
from either side in long fingers, with narrow gullies 
between, but as Andy passed the first of these pointing 
fingers a new thought came to him. 

It might be—why not ?—that the posse had made only 
a pretense of withdrawing at once with the body of the 
dead man. No doubt Bill Dozier had taken five hand¬ 
picked fellows from the crowd, and it seemed strange, 
indeed, if they would give up the battle when the odds 
were still five to one in their favor. Perhaps, then, they 
had only waited until they were out of sight and had 
then circled swiftly around, leaving one man with the 
body. They might be waiting now at the mouth of any 
of these gullies. 

No sooner had the thought come to Andy than he 
whitened. The pinto had been worked hard that morn¬ 
ing and all the night before, but now Andy sent the spurs 
home without mercy as he shot up the basin at full speed. 
Each spur of hills pointed at him accusingly. Each 
shadowy canon yawned like a door of danger as he 
passed, and he went with his revolver drawn, ready for 
a snap shot and a drop behind the far side of his horse. 

For half an hour he rode in this fashion with his heart 
beating at his teeth. And each canon as he passed was 
empty, and each had some shrub, like a crouching man, 
to startle him and upraise the revolver. At length, with 


THE BIRTH OF A DESPERADO 71 

the pinto wheezing from this new effort, he drew back 
to an easier gait. But still he had a companion cease¬ 
lessly following like the shadow of the horse he rode. 
It was fear, and it would never leave him. 


CHAPTER X 
Andy's death warrant 

I N her room, Anne Withero was reading. She had 
always disliked that room, for her tastes were by no 
means idle standards but tyrants, and the flowered wall 
paper of that old-fashioned place and the vivid red of 
the carpet were a torture to her eyes. The room had not 
changed overnight, yet now she preferred it to any other 
place in the house. And there was only one possible 
explanation. Once, twice, and again she got up from 
her chair to examine the sill of her window. On it there 
was a dotted scratch in the paint, such a scar as the sharp 
rowel of a spur might make. And on the slant roof of 
the veranda below her there was a broken shingle on 
which she could make out—or perhaps this was imagina¬ 
tion—the print of a heel. 

At any rate, the window sill fascinated her. 

After that forced and early rising the rest of the house 
had remained awake, but Anne Withero was gifted with 
an exceptionally strong set of nerves. She had gone 
back to bed and fallen promptly into a pleasant sleep. 
And when she wakened all that happened in the night 
was filmed over and had become dreamlike. 

No one disturbed her rest; but when she went down to 
a late breakfast she found Charles Merchant lingering in 
the room. He had questioned her closely, and after a 
moment of thought she told him exactly what had hap¬ 
pened, because she was perfectly aware that he would 
not believe a word of it. And she was right. He had 


ANDY’S DEATH WARRANT 


73 

sat opposite her, drumming his fingers without noise on 
the table, with a smile now and then which might be plain 
amusement, but which was tinged, she thought, with in¬ 
solence. 

Yet he seemed oddly undisturbed. She had expected 
some jealous outburst, some keen questioning of the mo¬ 
tives which had made her beg them not to pursue this 
man. But Charles Merchant was only interested in what 
the fellow had said and done when he talked with her. 
''He was just like a man out of a book,’’ said the girl in 
conclusion, "and I’ll wager that he’s been raised on ro¬ 
mances. He had the face for it, you know—and the 
wild look!” 

"A blacksmith—in Martindale—raised on romances?” 
Charles had said as he fingered his throat, which was 
patched with black and blue. ' 

"A blacksmith—in Martindale,” she had repeated 
slowly. And it brought a new view of the affair home 
to her. It had all seemed quite clear before. This ro¬ 
mantic fellow caught a glimpse of her, thought he was 
in love with a face, got into a scrape, and like a wild boy 
risked his life to see that face again while he was being 
pursued. Besides, now that they knew from Bill Dozier 
that the victim in Martindale had been only injured, and 
not actually killed, the whole matter became rather a 
farce. It would be an amusing tale. But now, as 
Charles Merchant repeated the words, "blacksmith”— 
"Martindale,” the new idea shocked her, the new idea of 
Andrew Banning, for Charles had told her the name. 

The new thought stayed with her when she went back 
to her room after breakfast, ostensibly to read, but really 
to think; for Anne Withero was still young enough to 
love to turn adventures over her tongue like a wine- 
taster. Remembering Andrew Banning, she got past the 


74 


FREE RANGE FANNING 


white face and the brilliant black eyes; she felt, looking 
back, that he had shown a restraint which was something 
more than boyish. When he took her in his arms just 
before he fled he had not kissed her, though, for that 
matter, she had been perfectly ready to let him do it. 

That moment kept recurring to her—the beating on 
the door, the voices in the hall, the shouts, and the arms 
of Andrew Fanning around her, and his tense, desperate 
face close to hers. It became less dreamlike that mo¬ 
ment. It became a living thing that grew more and 
more vivid. She began to understand that if she lived 
to be a hundred, she would never find that memory dim¬ 
mer. Men had made love to her, had poured out their 
hearts before her, but only once she had seen the soul of 
a man. And very naturally she kept thinking: What 
did he see in return? No, he had not seen the truth, 
but he had taken away a picture to worship. It was not 
strange that she did not hold this against young Fanning. 

When her eyes were misty with this thought, and a 
half-sad, half-happy smile was touching the corners of 
her mouth, Charles Merchant knocked at her door. 
Truly it was a most inopportune moment, but, since she 
had promised to become his wife, Charles made a com¬ 
mon masculine mistake—^he considered that she was 
already a possession and that even her thoughts belonged 
to him. She gave herself one moment in which to clear 
the wistfulness from her face, one moment to banish the 
queer pain of knowing that she would never see this wild 
Andrew again, and then she told Charles to come in. 

In fact, he was already opening the door, and she 
resented this fiercely. Besides, there was a ragged crack 
across the door where they had battered it down early 
that day. Then Charles stood before her. He was calm 


ANDY’S DEATH WARRANT 


75 

of face, but she guessed an excitement beneath the sur¬ 
face. 

“I’ve got something to show you,” he said. 

A great thought made her sit up in the chair; but she 
was afraid just then to stand up. “I know. The posse 
has reached that silly boy and brought him back. But I 
don’t want to see him again. Handcuffed, and all that.” 

“The posse is here, at least,” said Charles noncommit¬ 
tally. She was finding something new in him. The 
fact that he could think and hide his thoughts from her 
was indeed very new; for, when she first met him, he 
had seemed all surface, all clean young manhood with¬ 
out a stain, frank, careless, gay. Also, he danced won¬ 
derfully, and could wear his clothes. Everything be¬ 
tween them had grown out of that, and an impulse. 

“Do you want me to see the six brave men again?” 
she asked, smiling, but really she was prying at his mind 
to get a clew of the truth. “Well, I’ll come down.” 

And she went down the stairs with Charles Merchant 
beside her; he kept looking straight ahead, biting his lips, 
and this made her wonder. She began to hum a gay lit¬ 
tle tune, and the first bar made the man start. So she 
kept on. She was bubbling with apparent good nature 
when Charles, all gravity, opened the door of the living 
room. 

The shades were drawn. The quiet in that room was 
a deadly, living thing. And then she saw, on the sofa 
at one side of the place, a human form under a sheet. 

“Charles 1” whispered the girl. She put out her hand 
and touched his shoulder, but she could not take her eyes 
off that ghastly dead thing. “They they he s dead 
—Andrew Tanning! Why did you bring me here?” 

“Take the cloth from his face,” commanded Charles 
Merchant, and there was something so hard in his voice 


FREE RANGE FANNING 


76 

that she obeyed. She did not want to see the horror 
beneath, but she followed his order in a daze. 

The sheet came away under her touch, and she was 
looking into the sallow face of Bill Dozier. She had 
remembered him because of the sad mustaches, that 
morning, and his big voice. 

‘‘That’s what your romantic boy out of a book has 
done,” said Charles Merchant. “Look at his work!” 

But she dropped the sheet and whirled on him. 

“And they left him-” she said. 

“Anne,” said he, “are you thinking about the safety 
of that murderer—now? He’s safe, but they’ll get him 
later on; he’s as good as dead, if that’s what you want 
to know.” 

“God help him!” said the girl. 

And going back a pace, she stood in the thick shadow, 
leaning against the wall, with one hand across her lips. 
It reminded Charles of the picture he had seen when he 
broke into her room after Andrew Fanning had escaped. 
And she looked now, as, then, more white, more beauti¬ 
ful, more wholly to be desired than he had ever known 
her before. Yet he could neither move nor speak. He 
saw her go out of the room with staring eyes. Then, 
without stopping to replace the sheet, he followed. 

He had hoped to wipe the last thought of that vaga¬ 
bond blacksmith out of her mind with the shock of this 
horror. Instead, he knew now that he had done quite 
another thing. And in addition he had probably made 
her despise him for taking her to confront such a sight. 

All in all, Charles Merchant was exceedingly thought¬ 
ful as he closed the door and stepped into the hall. He 
ran up the stairs to her room. The door was closed. 
There was no answer to his knock, and by trying the 
knob he found that she had locked herself in. And the 



ANDY’S DEATH WARRANT 


77 

next moment he could hear her sobbing. He stood for 
a moment more, listening, and wishing Andrew Lanning 
dead with all his heart. ' 

Then he went down to the garage, climbed into his car, 
and burned up the road between his place and that of 
Hal Dozier. There was very little similarity between 
the two brothers. Bill had been tall and lean; Hal was 
compact and solid, and he had the fighting agility of a 
starved coyote. He had a smooth-shaven face as well, 
and a clear gray eye, which was known wherever men 
gathered in the mountain desert. There was no news to 
give him. A telephone message had already told him of 
the death of Bill Dozier. 

‘"But,” said Charles Merchant, ‘^there's one thing I can 
do. I can set you free to run down this Banning.’' 

‘‘How?” 

“You’re needed on your ranch, Hal; but I want you 
to let me stand the expenses of this trip. Take your 
time, make sure of him, and run him into the ground.” 

“My frien’,” said Hal Dozier, “you turn a pleasure 
into a real party.” 

And Charles Merchant left knowing that he had signed 
the death warrant of young Lanning. In all the history 
of the mountain desert there was a tale of only one man 
who had escaped, once Hal Dozier took his trail, and that 
man had blown out his own brains. 


CHAPTER XI 


ANDY TAKES CARDS 

F ar away in the western sky Andy Panning saw a 
black dot that moved in wide circles and came up 
across the heavens slowly, and he knew it was a buzzard 
that scented carrion and was coming up the wind toward 
that scent. He had seen them many a time before on 
their gruesome trails, and the picture which he carried 
was not a pleasant one. 

But now the picture that drifted through his mind was 
still more horrible. It was a human body lying face 
downward in the sand with the wind ruffling in the hair 
and the hat rolled a few paces off and the gun close to 
the outstretched hand. That was the way they would 
leave him when they found him. And he knew from 
Uncle Jasper that no matter how far the trail led, or how 
many years it was ridden, the end of the outlaw was 
always the same—death and the body left to the buz¬ 
zards. Or else, in some barroom, a footfall from be¬ 
hind and a bullet through the back. 

The flesh of Andy crawled. 

Hunger was a sharp pain in his vitals. He smoked a 
cigarette and forgot it. His eyes dimmed from long 
wakefulness and from squinting across the sand, but one 
rub of his hand restored the freshness of his sight. It 
was not possible for him to relax in vigilance for a mo¬ 
ment, lest danger come upon him when he least expected 
it. Perhaps, in some open space like this. He could 
feel the muscles of his face drawing with the test, but 


ANDY TAKES CARDS 


79 

he went on until the sun was low in the west and all the 
sky was rimmed with color. 

The mountain desert changed now. The hills were hung 
with blue on the eastern sides. The coolness seemed to 
come out of the ground, and the wind changed its direc¬ 
tion. But for Andy these were not pleasant things. 
Night had become an enemy. And the first moments of 
his long torment were beginning—men, who made up his 
danger, were also a necessity, and he felt that any dan¬ 
ger were better than this solitude and the dark. 

The sun was down, and the dusk had come over the 
hills in a rush, when he saw a house half lost in the shad¬ 
ows. It was a narrow-fronted, two-storied, unpainted, 
lonely place, without sign of a porch. It was obviously 
not made to be lived in and enjoyed. It was only a shel¬ 
ter into which people crept for the night, or where they 
ate their meals. And here certainly, where there was no 
vestige of a town near, and where there was no telephone, 
the news of the deaths of Bill Dozier and Buck Heath 
could not have come. Andy accepted the house as a 
blessing and went straight toward it. 

But the days of carelessness were over for Andy, and 
he would never again approach a house without search¬ 
ing it like a human face. He studied this shack as he 
came closer. It was an evil-appearing building, with no 
sign of smoke from the stovepipe until he was almost 
on the house, and then he saw a meager wisp of vapor, 
showing that the fire had almost burned down. And if 
there were people in the building they did not choose to 
show a light. The windows were black inside, and on 
the outside they glimmered with the light reflected from 
the sky. 

Andy went around to the rear of the house, where 
there was a low shed beside the corral, half tumbled down 


8o 


FREE RANGE FANNING 


because the owner had fed from it carelessly; but in the 
corral were five or six fine horses—wild fellows with 
bright eyes and long forelocks. They had the long 
necks of speed, and lithe, strong bodies. Andy looked 
upon them wistfully. Not one of them but was worth 
the price of three of the pinto; but as for money there 
was not five dollars in the pocket of Andy. 

Stripping the saddle from the pinto, he put it under 
the shed and left the mustang to feed and find water in 
the small pasture. Then he went with the bridle, that 
immemorial sign of one who seeks hospitality in the 
West, toward the house. He was met halfway by a 
tall, strong man of middle age or more. There was no 
hat on his head, which was covered with a shock of 
brown hair much younger than the face beneath it. He 
beheld Andy without enthusiasm. 

‘‘You figure on layin' over here for the night, stran¬ 
ger?’’ he asked. 

“That’s it,” said Andy. 

“I’ll tell you how it is,” said the big man in the tone 
of one who is willing to argue a point. “We ain’t got a 
very big house—^you see it—and it’s pretty well filled 
right now. If you was to slope over the hills there you’d 
find Gainorville inside of ten miles.” 

Andy explained that he was at the end of a hard ride. 
He pointed to the pinto, which, in spite of a roll in the 
pasture, still bore the distinct outlines of the saddle, black 
with sweat, and all the rest of him dusted with salt, where 
the perspiration had come out and repeatedly dried in 
layers. “Ten more miles would kill the pinto,” he said 
simply. “But if you don’t mind, I’ll have a bit of chow 
and then turn in out there in the shed. That won’t crowd 
you in your sleeping quarters, and it’ll be fine for me.” 

The big man opened his mouth to say something more. 


8i 


ANDY TAKES CARDS 

Andy, watching him with active eyes, saw three distinct 
shades of expression cross the face of the other; then 
his host turned on his heel. 

'1 guess we can fix you up,'’ he said. “Come on 
along." ' 

At another time Andy would have lost a hand rather 
than accept such churlish hospitality, but he was in no 
position to choose. The pain of hunger was like a voice 
speaking in him. 

It was a four-room house; the rooms on the ground 
floor were the kitchen, where Andy cooked his own sup¬ 
per of bacon and coffee and flapjacks, and the combina¬ 
tion living room, dining room, and, from the bunk cov¬ 
ered with blankets on one side, the bedroom. Upstairs 
there must have been two more rooms of the same size. 

Seated about a little kitchen table in the front room, 
Andy found three men playing an interrupted game of 
blackjack, which was resumed when the big fellow took 
his place before his hand. The three gave Andy a look 
and a grunt, but otherwise they paid no attention to him. 
And if they had consulted him he could have asked for 
no greater favor. Yet he had an odd hunger about see¬ 
ing them. They were the last men in many a month, 
perhaps, whom he could look at or whom he could per¬ 
mit to see him without a fear. He brought his supper 
into the living room and put his cup of coffee on the 
floor beside him. While he ate he watched them to¬ 
gether and in detail. 

They were, all in all, the least prepossessing group he 
had ever seen. The man who had brought him in was 
far from well favored, but he was handsome compared 
with the others. Opposite him sat a tall fellow very 
erect and stiff in his chair. A candle had recently been 
lights, and it stood on the table near this man. It 


82 


FREE RANGE FANNING 


showed a wan face of excessive leanness, and lank hair 
that seemed damp straggling across his forehead. His 
eyes were deep under bony brows, and they alone of the 
features showed any expression as the game progressed, 
turning now and again to the other faces with glances 
that burned; he was winning steadily. A red-headed 
man was on his left, with his back to Andy; but now 
and again he turned, and Andy saw a heavy jowl and a 
skin blotched with great, rusty freckles. His shoulders 
overflowed the back of his chair, which creaked whenever 
he moved, and Andy knew the man was a veritable 
Hercules; when he dropped his arm the tips of his fingers 
brushed close to the floor. 

The man who faced the redhead was as light as his 
companion was ponderous. He had frail hands and 
wrists, almost girlish; he was dressed also in a sort of 
feminine neatness and display; his voice was gentle, his 
eyes large and soft, and his profile was exceedingly hand¬ 
some. But in the full view Andy saw nothing except a 
grisly, purple scar that twisted down beneath the right 
eye of the man. It drew down the lower lid of that eye, 
and it pulled the mouth of the man a bit awry, so that 
he seemed to be smiling in a smug, half-apologetic man¬ 
ner. In spite of his youth and his gentle manner he was 
unquestionably the dominant spirit here. Once or twice 
the others lifted their voices in argument, and a single 
word from him cut them short. And when he raised his 
head, now and again, to look at Andy, it gave the latter 
a feeling that his secret was read aqd all his past known. 

These strange fellows had not asked his name, and 
neither had they introduced themselves, but from their 
table talk he gathered that the redhead was narned Jeff, 
the funereal man with the bony face was Larry, the 
brown-haired one was Joe, and he of the scar and the 


ANDY TAKES CARDS 


83 

smile was Henry. It occurred to Andy as odd that such 
rough boon companions had not shortened that name 
for convenience. 

They played with the most intense concentration. As 
the night deepened and the windows became black slabs 
Joe brought another candle and reenforced this light by 
hanging a lantern from a nail on the wall. This illumi¬ 
nated the entire room, but in a partial and dismal man¬ 
ner. The game went on. They were playing for high 
stakes; Andrew Lanning had never seen so much cash 
assembled at one time. They had stacks of unmistakable 
yellow gold before them—actually stacks. He counted 
fifty ten-dollar gold pieces before Jeff; Henry lost stead¬ 
ily, but replaced his losses from an apparently inexhausti¬ 
ble purse; Joe had about the same amount as Jeff, but 
the winner was Larry. That skull-faced gentleman was 
fairly barricaded behind heaps of money. Andy esti¬ 
mated swiftly that there must be well over two thousand 
dollars in those stacks. 

He finished his supper, and, having taken the tin cup 
and plate out into the next room and cleaned them, he 
had no sooner come back to the door, on the verge of 
bidding them good night, than Henry invited him to sit 
down and take a hand. 


CHAPTER XII 


THE BRINGER OF NEWS 

H e had never studied any men as he had watched these 
men at cards. Andrew Panning had spent most 
of his life quite indifferent to the people around him, but 
now it was necessary to make quick judgments and sure. 
He had to read unreadable faces. He had to guess mo¬ 
tives. He had to sense the coming of danger before it 
showed its face. And, watching them with close intent¬ 
ness, he understood that at least three of them were 
cheating at every opportunity. Henry, alone, was play¬ 
ing a square game; as for the heavy winner, Larry, An¬ 
drew had reason to believe that he was adroitly palming 
an ace now and again—^luck ran too consistently his way. 
For his own part, he was no card expert, and he smiled 
as Henry made his offer. 

‘T've got eleven dollars and fifty cents in my pocket,’’ 
he said frankly. ‘T won’t sit in at that game.” 

‘‘Then the game is three-handed,” said Henry as he 
got up from his chair. “I’ve fed you boys enough,” he 
continued in his soft voice. “I know a three-handed 
game is no good, but I’m through. Unless you’ll try a 
round or two with ’em, stranger? They’ve made enough 
money. Maybe they’ll play for silver for the fun of it, 
eh, boys?” 

There was no enthusiastic assent. The three looked 
gravely at a victim with eleven dollars and fifty cents, 
the chair of big Jeff creaking noisily as he turned. “Sit 


THE BRINGER OF NEWS 85 

in/’ said Jeff. He made a brief gesture, like one wiping 
an obstacle out of the way. 

“All right,” nodded Andy, for the thing began to excite 
him. He turned to Henry. “Suppose you deal for us?” 

The scar on Henry’s face changed color, and his 
habitual smile broadened. “Well!” exclaimed Larry. 
“Maybe the gent don’t like the way we been runnin’ this 
game in other ways. Maybe he’s got a few more sug¬ 
gestions to make, sittin’ in? I like to be obligin’.” 

He grinned, and the effect was ghastly. 

“Thanks,” said Andy. “That lets me out as far as 
suggestions go.” He paused with his hand on the back 
of the chair, and something told him that Larry would 
as soon run a knife into him as take a drink of water. 
The eyes burned up at him out of the shadow of the 
brows, but Andy, though his heart leaped, made himself 
meet the stare. Suddenly it wavered, and only then 
would Andy sit down. Henry had drawn up another 
chair. 

“That idea looks good to me,” he said. “I think I 
shall deal.” And forthwith, as one who may not be re¬ 
sisted, he swept up the cards and began to shuffle. 

The others at once lost interest. Each of them non¬ 
chalantly produced silver, and they began to play negli¬ 
gently, careless of their stakes. 

But to Andy, who had only played for money half a 
dozen times before, this was desperately earnest. He 
kept to a conservative game, and slowly but surely he 
saw his silver being converted into gold. Only Larry 
noticed his gains—the others were indifferent to it, but 
the skull-faced man tightened his lips as he saw. Sud¬ 
denly he began betting in gold, ten dollars for each card 
he drew. The others were out of that hand. Andy, 
breathless, for he had an ace down, saw a three and a 


86 


FREE RANGE FANNING 


two fall—took the long chance, and, with the luck behind 
him, watched a five-spot flutter down to join his draw. 
Yet Larry, taking the same draw, was not busted. He 
had a pair of deuces and a four. There he stuck, and 
it stood to reason that he could not win. Yet he bet 
recklessly, raising Andy twice, until the latter had no 
more money on the table to call a higher bet. The show¬ 
down revealed an ace under cover for Larry also. Now 
he leaned across the table, smiling at Andrew. 

“I like the hand you show,” said Larry, '‘but I don’t 
like your face behind it, my friend.” 

His smile went out; his hand jerked back; and then 
the lean, small hand of Henry shot out and fastened on 
the tall man’s wrist. "You skunk!” said Henry. "D’you 
want to get the kid for that beggarly mess ? Bah 1” 

Andy, colorless, his blood cold, brushed aside the arm 
of the intercessor. 

"Partner,” He said, leaning a little forward in turn, 
and thereby making his holster swing clear of the seat of 
his chair, "partner, I don’t mind your words, but I don’t 
like the way you say ’em.” 

When he began to speak his voice was shaken; before 
he had finished, his tones rang, and he felt once more 
that overwhelming desire which was like the impulse 
to, ding l/.mself from a height. He had felt it before, 
wfien he watched the posse retreat with the body of Bill 
Dozier. He felt it now, a vast hunger, an almost blind¬ 
ing eagerness to see Larry make an incriminating move 
with his bony, hovering right hand. The bright eyes 
burned at him for a moment longer out of the shadow. 
Then, again, they wavered, and turned away. 

Andy knew that the fellow had no more stomach for 
a fight. Shame might have made him go through with 


THE BRINGER OF NEWS 87 

the thing he started, however, had not Henry cut in 
again and given Larry a chance to withdraw gracefully. 

“The kid's called your bluff, Larry," he said. “And 
the rest of us don't need to see you pull any target prac¬ 
tice. Shake hands with the kid, will you, and tell him 
you were joking!" 

Larry settled back in his chair with a grunt, and Henry, 
without a word, tipped back in his chair and kicked the 
table. Andy, beside him, saw the move start, and he 
had just time to scoop his own winnings, including that 
last rich bet, off the table top and into his pocket. As 
for the rest of the coin, it slid with a noisy jangle to the 
floor, and it turned the other three men into scrambling 
madmen. They scratched and clawed at the money, 
cursing volubly, and Andy, stepping back out of the 
fracas, saw the scar-faced man watching with a smile of 
contempt. There was a snarl; Jeff had Joe by the throat, 
and Joe was reaching for his gun. Henry moved for¬ 
ward to interfere once more, but this time he was not 
needed. A clear whistling sounded outside the house, 
and a moment later the door was kicked open. A man 
came in with his saddle on his hip. 

His appearance converted the threatening fight into 
a scene of jovial good nature. The money was swept 
up at random, as though none of them had the slightest 
care what became of it. Coin appeared to be made cheap 
by the appearance of this fifth man. 

“Havin' one of your little parties, eh ?" said the stran¬ 
ger. “What started it?" 

“He did, Scottie," answered Larry, and, stretching out 
an arm of enormous length, he pointed at Andrew. 

Again it required the intervention of Henry to explain 
matters, and Scottie, with his hands on his hips, turned 
and surveyed Andrew with considering eyes. He was 


88 


FREE RANGE FANNING 


much different from the rest. Whereas, they had one 
and all a peculiarly unhealthy effect upon Andy, this 
newcomer was a cheery fellow, with an eye as clear as 
crystal, and color in his tanned cheeks. He had one of 
those long faces which invariably imply shrewdness, and 
he canted his head to one side while he watched Andy. 
“You’re him that put the pinto in the corral, I guess?” 
he said. 

Andy nodded. 

There was no further mention of the troubles of that 
card game. Jeff and Joe and Larry were instantly busied 
about the kitchen and in arranging the table, while Scot- 
tie, after the manner of a guest, bustled about and accom¬ 
plished little. 

But the eye of Andrew, then and thereafter, whenever 
he was near the five, kept steadily upon the scar-faced 
man. Henry had tilted his chair back against the wall. 
The night had come on chill, with a rising wind that 
hummed through the cracks of the ill-built wall and 
tossed the flame in the throat of the chimney; Henry 
draped a coat like a cloak around his shoulders and buried 
his chin in his hands, separated from the others by a vast 
gulf. Presently Scottie was sitting at the table. The 
others were gathered around him in expectant attitudes. 
One or two unavoidable side glances flashed across at 
Andy, and he knew that he was not wanted, but he was 
too much fascinated by this strange society to leave. 

Red-headed Jeff, his burly face twisting with anxiety, 
asked: “And did you see her, man ?” 

“Sure did I,” nodded Scottie. “She’s doin’ fine. 
Nothin’ to be asked better. She had some messages to 
send you, lad.” He smiled at Jeff, who sighed. 

Then he turned to Larry. “I sent the money,” he 
said, and the skull-faced man nodded. 


THE BRINGER OF NEWS 89 

To Joe: “The kid weighs eighty-seven pounds. 
Looks more a ringer for you every day.” 

To each of them one important message, except for 
Henry. “What else is new?” they exclaimed in one 
voice. 

“Oh, about a million things. Let me get some of this 
ham into my face, and then I’ll talk. I’ve got a batch 
of newspapers yonder. There’s a gold rush on up to 
Tolliver’s Creek.” 

Andy blinked, for that news was at least four weeks 
old. But now came a tide of other news, and almost all 
of it was stale stuff to him. But the men drank it in— 
all except Henry, silent in his corner. He was relaxed, 
as if he slept. “But the most news is about the killing 
of Bill Dozier.” 


CHAPTER XIII 


ANDY IS INTRODUCED 

O U BILLr^ grunted red-headed Jeff. ^Well, Til be 
hung! There’s one good deed done. He was over¬ 
due, anyways.” 

Andy, waiting breathlessly, watched lest the eye of the 
narrator should swing toward him for the least part of 
a second. But Scottie seemed utterly oblivious of the 
fact that he sat in the same room with the murderer. 

“Well, he got it,” said Scottie. “And he didn’t get it 
from behind. Seems there was a young gent in Martin- 
dale—all you boys know old Jasper Tanning?” There 
was an answering chorus. “Well, he’s got a nephew, 
Andrew Tanning. This kid was sort of a bashful kind, 
they say. But yesterday he up and bashed a fellow in 
the jaw, and the man went down. Whacked his head on 
a rock, and young Tanning thought his man was dead. 
So he holds off the crowd with a gun, hops a horse, and 
beats it.” 

“Pretty, pretty!” murmured Tarry. “But what’s that 
got to do with that hyena. Bill Dozier ?” 

“I don’t get it all hitched up straight. Most of the 
news come from Martindale to town by telephone. 
Seems this young Tanning was follered by Bill Dozier. 
He was always a hound for a job like that, eh?” 

There was a growl of assent. 

“He hand-picked five rough ones and went after Tan¬ 
ning. Chased him all night. Tanded at John Mer¬ 
chant’s place. The kid had dropped in there to call on 


ANDY IS INTRODUCED 


91 

a girl. Can you beat that for cold nerve, him figuring 
that he’d killed a man, and Bill Dozier and five more on 
his trail to bring him back to wait and see whether the 
buck he dropped lived or died—and then to slide over 
and call on a lady? No, you can’t raise that!” 

But the tidings were gradually breaking in upon the 
mind of Andrew Banning. Buck Heath had not been 
dead; the pursuit was simply to bring him back on some 

charge of assault; and now—Bill Dozier- The head 

of Andrew swam. 

“Seems he didn’t know her, either. Just paid a call 
round about dawn and then rode on. Oh, that’s the 
frosty nerve for you 1 Bill comes along a little later on 
the trail, gets new horses from Merchant, and runs down 
Banning early this morning. Runs him down, and then 
Banning turns in the saddle and drills Bill through the 
head at five hundred yards.’' 

Henry came to life. 

“How far?” he said. 

“That’s what they got over the telephone,” said Scot- 
tie apologetically. 

“Then the news got to Hal Dozier from Merchant’s 
house. Hal hops on the wire and gets in touch with the 
governor, and in about ten seconds they make this Ban¬ 
ning kid an outlaw and stick a price on his head—five 
thousand, I think, and they say Merchant is behind it. 
The telephone was buzzing with it when I left town, and 
most of the boys were oiling up their gats and getting 
ready to make a play. Pretty easy money, eh, for put¬ 
ting the rollers under a kid?” 

Andrew Banning muttered aloud: ^^An outlaw 1 ” 

“Not the first time Bill Dozier has done it,” said Henry 
calmly. “That’s an old maneuver of his—to hound a 
man from a little crime to a big one.” 



92 


FREE RANGE FANNING 


The throat of Andrew was dry. ‘‘Did you get a de¬ 
scription of young Fanning?” he asked. 

“Sure,” nodded Scottie. “Twenty-three years old, 
about five feet ten, black hair and black eyes, good look¬ 
ing, big shoulders, quiet spoken.” 

Andrew made a gesture and looked carelessly out the 
back window, but, from the corner of his eyes, he was 
noting the five men. Not a line of their expressions 
escaped him. He was seeing, literally, with eyes in the 
back of his head; and if, by the interchange of one know¬ 
ing glance, or by a significant silence, even, these fellows 
had indicated that they remotely guessed his identity, he 
would have been on his feet like a tiger, gun in hand, 
and backing for the door. Five thousand dollars! What 
would not one of these men do for that sum? And yet, 
money seemed plentiful among them. But five thousand 
dollars! A man could buy twenty fine horses for that 
pricte; he could buy a store and set up in business for 
that price. A struggling family could lift its mortgage 
and breathe freely for a smaller sum than that. And of 
his few friends, what one was there who would shelter 
him or aid him ? What human being in the world would 
prefer him to five thousand dollars ? 

All this ran through the brain of Andy in the second 
in which he turned his head toward the window. He 
had been keyed to the breaking point before; but his 
alertness was now trebled, and, like a sensitive barometer, 
he felt the danger of Farry, the brute strength of Jeff, 
the cunning of Henry, the grave poise of Joe, to say noth¬ 
ing of Scottie—an unknown force. 

But Scottie was running on in his talk; he was telling 
of how he met the storekeeper in town; he was naming 
everything he saw; these fellows seemed to hunger for 
the minutest news of men. They poured forth a chorus 


ANDY IS INTRODUCED 


93 

of questions about a new house that was being built; 
they broke into admiring'laughter when Scottie told of 
his victorious tilt of jesting with the storekeeper’s daugh¬ 
ter; even Henry came out of his patient gloom long 
enough to smile at this, and the rest were like children. 
Larry was laughing so heartily that his eyes began to 
twinkle. He even invited Andrew in on the mirth. 

At this point Andy stood up and stretched elaborately 
—^but in stretching he put his arms behind him, and 
stretched them down rather than up, so that his hands 
were never far from his hips. 

‘T’ll be turning in,” said Andy, and stepping back to 
the door so that his face would be toward them until the 
last instant of his exit, he waved good night. 

There was a brief shifting of eyes toward him, and a 
grunt from Jeff; that was all. Then the eye of every 
one reverted to Scottie. But the latter broke off his 
narrative. 

“Ain’t you sleepin’ in ?” he asked. “We could fix you 
a bunk upstairs, I guess.” 

Once more the glance of Andrew flashed from face 
to face, and yet he did not allow his eyes to actually stir 
from Scottie. He was waiting for some significant 
change of expression, but that change did not come. 
They glanced at him again, but impatiently. And then 
he saw the first suspicious thing. Scottie was looking 
straight at Henry, in the corner, as though waiting for 
a direction, and, from the corner of his eye, Andrew was 
aware that Henry had nodded ever so slightly. 

“Here’s something you might be interested to know,” 
said Scottie. “This young Banning was riding a pinto 
boss.” He added, while Andrew stood rooted to the 
spot: “You seemed sort of interested in the descrip- 


94 free range LANNING 

tion. I allowed maybe you’d try your hand at findin’ 
him.” 

Andy understood perfectly that he was known, and, 
with his left hand frozen against the knob of the door, 
he flattened his shoulders against the wall and stood ready 
for the draw. In the crisis, at the first hostile move, he 
decided that he would dive straight for the table, low. 
It would tumble the room into darkness as the candles 
fell—a semidarkness, for there would be a sputtering 
lantern still. 

Then he would fight for his life. And looking at the 
others, he saw that they were changed, indeed. They 
were all facing him, and their faces were alive with in¬ 
terest; yet they made no hostile move. No doubt they 
awaited the signal of Henry; there was the greatest dan¬ 
ger; and now Henry stood up. 

His first word was a throwing down of disguises. 
"‘Mr. Lanning,” he said, ‘T think this is a time for intro¬ 
ductions.” 

That cold exultation, that wild impulse to throw him¬ 
self into the arms of danger, was sweeping over Andrew. 
Not a nerve in his body quivered, but every one of them 
seemed to be tightened to the breaking point. He was 
ready to move like lightning—like intelligent lightning, 
choosing its targets. He made no gesture toward his 
gun, though his fingers were curling, but he said: 
‘Triends, I’ve got you all in my eye. I’m going to open 
this door and go out. No harm to any of you. But if 
you try to stop me, it means trouble, a lot of trouble— 
quick!” 

Just a split second of suspense. If a foot stirred, or 
a hand raised, Andrew’s curling hand would jerk up and 
bring out a revolver, and every man in the room knew it. 
Then the voice of Henry, “You’d plan on fighting us all ?” 


ANDY IS INTRODUCED 95 

^^Take my bridle off the wall/’ said Andrew, looking 
straight before him at no face, and thereby enabled to 
see everything, just as a boxer looks in the eye of his 
opponent and thereby sees every move of his gloves. 
“Take my bridle off the wall, you, Jeff, and throw it at 
my feet.” 

The bridle rattled at his feet. 

“This has gone far enough,” said Henry. “Tanning, 
you’ve got the wrong idea. I’m going ahead with the 
introductions. The red-headed fellow we call Jeff is 
better known to the public as Jeff Rankin. Does that 
mean anything to you?” Jeff Rankin acknowledged the 
introduction with a broad grin, the corners of his mouth 
being lost in the heavy fold of his jowls. “I see it 
doesn’t,” went on Henry. “Very well. Joe’s name is 
Joe Clune. Yonder sits Scottie Macdougal. There is 
Larry la Roche. And I am Henry Allister.” 

The edge of Andrew’s alertness was suddenly dulled. 
The last name swept into his brain a wave of meaning, 
for of all words on the mountain desert there was none 
more familiar, more hauntingly well known than Henry 
Allister. “Scar-faced” Allister, they called him. He 
had not yet reached middle age, and yet, for nearly 
twenty years, his had been a name to conjure with, a 
thing to frighten strong men by the bare mention. Of 
those deadly men who figured in the tales of Uncle Jasper, 
Henry Allister was the last and the most grim. A thou¬ 
sand stories clustered about him: of how he killed Wat¬ 
kins; of how Langley, the famous Federal marshal, 
trailed him for five years and was finally killed in the 
duel which left Allister with that scar; of how he broke 
jail at Garrisonville and again at St. Luke City. In the 
imagination of Andrew he had loomed like a giant, some 
seven-foot prodigy, whiskered, savage of eye, terrible of 


FREE RANGE FANNING 


96 

voice. And, turning toward him, Andrew saw him in 
profile with the scar obscured—and his face was of 
almost feminine refinement. 

Five thousand dollars ? 

A dozen rich men in the mountain desert would each pay 
more than that for the apprehension of Allister, dead or 
alive. And bitterly it came over Andrew that this genius 
of crime, this heartless murderer as story depicted him, 
was no danger to him but almost a friend. And the 
other four ruffians of Allister’s band were smiling cor¬ 
dially at him, enjoying his astonishment. The day be¬ 
fore his hair would have turned white in such a place 
among such men; to-night they were his friends. 

'‘Gentlemen,’’ said Andrew, “I’m glad to meet you.” 

A chorus boomed back at him; he made out the dif¬ 
ferent voices; even the savage Larry la Roche was smil¬ 
ing. “Well, kid, this is one on you.” “Sit down and 
tell us about it.” “So you bumped off Bill Dozier—the 
skunk?” “Hang up your hat and make yourself to 
home.” “You can share my bunk.” 

Tears came to Andrew’s eyes, but he winked them 
away. 


CHAPTER XIV 

INVISIBLE BONDS 

A fter that things happened to Andrew in a swirl. 

They were shaking hands with him. They were 
congratulating him on the killing of Bill Dozier. They 
were patting him on the back. Larry la Roche, who had 
been so hostile, now stood up to the full of his ungainly 
height and proposed his health. And the other men 
drank it standing. Andy received a tin cup half full of 
whisky, and he drank the burning stuff in acknowledg¬ 
ment. The unaccustomed drink went to his head, his 
muscles began to relax, his eyes swam. Voices boomed 
at him out of a haze. “Why, he’s only a young kid. 
One shot put him under the weather.” 

“Shut up, Larry. He’ll learn fast enough.” 

“Ah, yes,” said Larry to himself, “he’ll learn fast 
enough 1” 

Presently he was lifted and carried by strong arms up 
a creaking stairs. He looked up, and he saw the red 
hair of the mighty Jeff, who carried him as if he had 
been a child, and deposited him among some blankets, 
with as much care as if he had been a child indeed. 

“I didn’t know,” Larry la Roche was saying. “How 
could I tell he didn’t know how to handle his booze? 
How could I tell a man-killer like him couldn’t stand no 
more than a girl?” 

“Shut up and get out,” said another voice. Heavy 
footsteps retreated, then Andrew heard them once more 
grumbling and booming below him. 


98 


FREE RANGE FANNING 


After that his head cleared rapidly. Two windows 
were open in this higher room, and a sharp current of 
the night wind blew across him, clearing his mind as 
rapidly as wind blows away a fog. The alcohol had 
only stupefied him for the moment. It was not enough 
to make him sleep, and, instead, it reacted presently as 
a stimulus, making his heart flutter, while a peculiar sense 
of depression and guilt troubled him. Now he made out 
that one man had not left him; the dark outline of him 
was by the bed, waiting. 

‘‘Who’s there?” asked Andrew. 

“Allister. Take it easy.” 

“Em all right. I’ll go down again to the boys.” 

“That’s what I’m here to talk to you about, kid. Are 
you sure you want to go down ?” 

He added slowly, “Are you sure your head’s clear?” 

“Yep. Sure thing.” 

“Then listen to me. Tanning, while I talk. It’s im¬ 
portant. Stay here till the morning, then ride on.” 

“Where?” 

“Oh, away from Martindale, that’s all.” 

“Out of the desert? Out of the mountains?” 

“Of course. They’ll hunt for you here.” Allister 
paused, then went on. “And when you get away what’ll 
you do ? Go straight ?” 

“God willing,” said Andrew fervently. “It—it was 
only luck, bad luck, that put me where I am.” 

The outlaw scratched a match and lighted a candle; 
then he dropped a little of the melted tallow on a box, 
and by that light he peered earnestly into Andrew’s face. 
He appeared to need this light to read the expression on 
it. It also enabled Andrew to see the bare rafters and 
the cobwebs across the ceiling, and it showed him the face 
of Allister. Sometimes the play of shadows made that 


INVISIBLE BONDS 99 

face unreal as a dream, sometimes the face was filled 
with poetic beauty, sometimes the light gleamjsd on the 
scar and the sardonic smile, and then it was a face out of 
hell. 

‘‘You're going to get away from the mountain desert 
and go straight," said Allister in resume. 

“That's it." He saw that the outlaw was staring with 
a smile, half grim and half sad, into the shadows and far 
away. 

“Banning, let me tell you. You'll never get away." 

“You don't understand," said Andrew. “Those fel¬ 
lows downstairs wouldn’t have known what I was talk¬ 
ing about, but I can explain to you. Allister, I don't like 
fighting. It—it makes me sick inside. It isn't easy to 
say, but I’ll whisper it to you—Allister, I’m not a brave 
man!" 

He waited to see the contempt come on the face of 
the famous leader, but there was nothing but grave 
attention. 

“Why,” he went on in a rush of confidence, “every¬ 
body in Martindale knows that I’m not a fighter. My 
uncle made me work with guns. He’s a fighter. He 
wanted to make a fighter out of me. But I don’t want 
to be one. I feel friendly toward people, Allister. I 
want them to like me. When they sneer at me it hurts 
me like knives. The only reason I ever wanted to do 
any fighting was just to get the respect of people. Those 
fellows downstairs think that I’m a sort of bad hombre. 
I’m not. I want to abide by the law. I want to play 
clean and straight. Why, Allister, when I turned over 
Buck Heath and saw his face, I nearly fainted, and 
then-" 

“Wait," cut in the other. “That was your first man. 
You didn’t kill him, but you thought you had. You 



100 


FREE RANGE FANNING 


nearly fainted, then. But as I gather it, after you shot 
Bill Dozier you simply sat on your horse and waited. 
Did you feel like fainting then 

explained Andrew hastily. ‘‘I wanted to go 
after them and shoot ’em all. But that was because 
they’d hounded me and chased me. They could have 
rushed me and taken me prisoner easily, but they wanted 
to shoot me from a distance—and it made me mad to 
see them work it. I—I hated them all, and I had a rea¬ 
son for it. Curse them!” 

He added hurriedly: ‘‘But I’ve no grudge against 
anybody. All I want is a chance to live quiet and clean.” 

There was a faint sigh from Allister. ^ 

“Lanning,” he murmured, “I’ll tell you a story. Away 
east from here there was a young chap of a mighty good 
family, but rather gay habits—nothing vicious. He sim¬ 
ply spent a little too much money, and his father didn’t 
approve of it. Well, one day his father gave him twenty 
dollars to take to another man. Mind that—^just twenty 
dollars. Our young fellow started out, but in the crowd 
his pocket was picked. It made him sick when he found 
that he hadn’t that money. He knew that his father 
would put it down to a lie. His father would think that 
he’d spent that money on himself, and the idea of another 
row with the governor made the boy sick inside. Just 
the "way you felt about fighting. 

“He told himself he couldn’t go home until he had that 
money back. He couldn’t face his father, you see? 
Well, he was pretty young and pretty foolish. He went 
into an alley that evening, pulled a cloth over his face 
with eyeholes in it, and waited until a well-dressed fel¬ 
low came through. He held up that man by putting a 
little toy pistol under the man’s nose. Then he went 


INVISIBLE BONDS 


lOI 


through his victim's pockets and took twenty dollars— 
just that, and left over a hundred. And he went away. 

‘There was a hue and cry, but our young chap was 
safe at home in one of the most respectable families in the 
city. Who’d think of looking there? 

“But one night at a party—a sort of town dance, you 
see, our young chap was talking in one of the anterooms. 
Pretty soon a big fellow stepped up and drew him to one 
side. ‘Youngster, I recognized your voice,’ he said. 
‘You’re the one who stuck me up in the alley and got 
twenty bucks from me, eh ?’ 

“Of course, our friend could have denied it. But he 
didn’t think of that. He was afraid. He turned white. 
Then he took out twenty dollars and put it into the other 
man’s hand. ‘It was a joke,’ he said. ‘Forget about it.’ 
‘Sure,’ said the other. ‘It was a joke.’ 

“But ten days later the victim of the holdup came 
again. He was in trouble. He wanted a hundred dol¬ 
lars. And the young chap had to get that money—other¬ 
wise he’d be exposed. 

“And a week after that there was another call for 
money. It came while the youngster was in the garden 
of the girl he loved, talking to her. This big chap looked 
over the hedge and called. He had to come. He was 
afraid. Also, he was cold inside. But his nerves were 
steady. He was frightened to death, he was white, but 
his brain was clear. Ever feel like that, Banning?” 

“Go on,” said Andrew hoarsely. 

“He said to the big man, ‘Go away from here, or I’ll 
kill you.’ Of course, the big man laughed. And the 
hands of the youngster went up of their own accord and 
fastened in that fellow’s throat. There wasn’t a sound. 
But in one minute he had become a murderer. All the 


102 


FREE RANGE FANNING 


time he was frightened to death, but he felt that he had 
to kill that man. 

^‘Then he ran. He got on a train. He went two 
thousand miles. He stayed in a small town a month, 
then the police were on his trail. He broke away. He 
went on a ship to the other side of the world. The 
police dropped in on him, and, in one terrible ten seconds, 
he shot down and killed three men. He doubled straight 
back on his trail. He landed in the mountain desert. 
All he wanted was a chance to play clean—^to settle down 
and be a good citizen. But the law wouldn’t let him. 
It kept dogging him. It kept haunting him. And where- 
ever it crossed his path there was a little cross of blood. 
And, finally, a good many years later, this youngster of 
ours, grown into a man, gat in an attic of an old shanty 
and told another youngster what was coming to him.” 

‘‘You!” breathed Andrew. 

“I,” said Allister calmly. “And this is what you have 
to hear: All the time I thought that I was trying to run 
away from trouble, but really I was hungry for the fight¬ 
ing. I wanted the excitement. What I thought was 
fear was simply a set of nerves which could be tuned up 
to a thrilling point, but which would never break. I’ll 
tell you why. I had the metal in me from the first. In 
the blood; in my muscles. A queer sort of foreknowl¬ 
edge of things. Fanning, the moment I lay eyes on a 
man I know whether I can beat him or not. I even know 
whether his bullet will strike me. Queer, isn’t it ? And 
when I meet the man who is going to kill me in a fair 
fight, I’ll know I’m a dead man before the bullet goes 
through my heart. Oh, it’s nothing altogether peculiar 
to me. I’ve talked with other men of the ilk. It’s a 
characteristic; it’s in my blood; it’s iron dust inside me, 
that’s all.” 


INVISIBLE BONDS 


103 


Andrew caught a great breath. 

'‘Now ril tell you why I say all this, Banning. The 
minute I laid eyes on you, I knew you were one of my 
kind. In all my life I’ve known only one other with that 
same chilly effect in his eyes—that was Marshal Langley 
—only he happened to be on the side of the law. No 
matter. He had the iron dust in him. He was cut out 
to be a man-killer. You say you want to get away: 
Banning, you can’t do it. Because you can’t get away 
from yourself. I’m making a long talk to you, but you’re 
worth it. I tell you I read your mind. You plan on 
riding north and getting out of the mountain desert be¬ 
fore the countryside there is raised against you, the way 
it’s raised to the south. In the first place, I don’t think 
you’ll get away. Hal Dozier is on your trail, and he’ll 
get to the north and raise the whole district and stop you 
before you hit the towns. You’ll have to go back to 
the mountain desert. You’ll have to do it eventually, 
why not do it now? Banning, if I had you at my back 
I could laugh at the law the rest of our lives! Stay with 
me. I can tell a man when I see him. I saw you call 
Larry la Roche. And I’ve never wanted a man the way 
I want you. Not to follow me, bubas a partner. Shake 
and say you will!” 

The slender hand was stretched out through the shad¬ 
ows, the light from the candle flashed on it. And a 
power outside his own will made Andrew move his hand 
to meet it. He stopped the gesture with a violent effort. 

The swift voice of the outlaw, with a fiber of earnest 
persuasion in it, went on: ‘You see what I risk to get 
you. Hal Dozier is on your trail. He’s the only man 
in the world I’d think twice about before I met him face 
to face. But if I join to you. I’ll have to meet him 
sooner or later. Well, Banning, I’ll take that risk. I 


104 


FREE RANGE FANNING 


know he’s more devil than man when it comes to gun 
play, but we’ll meet him together. Give me your hand!” 

There was a riot in the brain of Andrew Fanning. The 
words of the outlaw had struck something in him that 
was like metal chiming on metal. Iron dust? That 
was it! The call of one blood to another, and he real¬ 
ized the truth of what Allister said. If he touched the 
hand of this man, there would be a bond between them 
which only death could break. In one blinding rush he 
sensed the strength and the faith of Allister. 

But another voice was at his ear, and he saw the crys¬ 
tal purity of the eyes of Anne Withero, as she had stood 
for that moment in his arms in her room. It came over 
him with a chill like cold moonlight; it came over him 
with a chill like the bouquet of a fine wine. 

“Do you fear me?” he had whispered. 

“No.” 

“Will you remember me?” 

“Forever!” 

And with that ghost of a voice in his ear Andrew Fan¬ 
ning groaned to the man beside him: “Partner, I know 
you’re nine-tenths man, and I thank you out of the bot¬ 
tom of my heart. But there’s some onb else has a claim 
to me-^I don’t belong to myself.” 

There was a breathless pause. Anger contractad the 
face of Henry Allister; he nodded gravely. 

“It’s the girl you went back to see,” he said. 

“Yes.” 

“Well, then, go ahead and try to win through. Try 
to get out of the desert and get away among men. I 
wish you luck. But if you fail, remember what I’ve 
said. Now, or ten years from now, what I’ve said goes 
for you. Now roll over and sleep. Good-by, Fanning, 
or, rather, au re voir!” 


CHAPTER Xy 


TOWARD THE FAR HORIZON 

T he excitement kept Andrew awake for a little time, 
but then the hum of the wind, the roll of voices 
below him, and the weariness of the long ride rushed on 
him like a wave and washed him out into an ebb of sleep. 

When he wakened the aches were gone from his limbs, 
and his mind was a happy blank. Only when he started 
up from his blankets and rapped his head against the 
slanting rafters just above him, he was brought to a pain¬ 
ful realization of where he was. He turned, scowling, 
and the first thing he saw was a piece of brown wrap¬ 
ping paper held down by a shoe and covered with a 
clumsy scrawl. 

These blankets are yours and the slicker along 
with them and heres wishin you luck while youre 
beatin it back to civlizashun. your friend 

Jeff Rankin. 

Andy glanced swiftly about the room and saw that 
the other bunks had been removed. He swept up the 
blankets and went down the stairs to the first floor. It 
was gutted of everything except the crazy-legged chairs 
and the boxes which had served as tables. The house 
reeked of emptiness; broken bottles, a twisted tin plate in 
which some one had set his heel, were the last signs of 
the outlaws of Henry Allister’s gang. A bundle stood 
on the table with another piece of th^ wrapping paper 
near it. The name of Andrew Panning was on the out- 


io6 


FREE RANGE FANNING 


side. He unfolded the sheet and read in a precise, 
rather feminine writing: 

Dear Fanning: We are, in a manner, sneaking 
off. IVe already said good-by, and I don't want to 
tempt you again. Now you’re by yourself and 
you’ve got your own way to fight. The boys agree 
with me. We all want to see you make good. 
We’ll all be sorry if you come back to us. But once 
you’re here, once you’ve found out that it’s no go 
trying to beat back to good society, we’ll be mighty 
happy to have you with us. In the meantime, we 
want to do our bit to help Andrew Fanning make 
up for his bad luck. 

For my part. I’ve put a chamois sack on top of the 
leather coat with the fur lining. You’ll find a little 
money in that purse. While you slept I took occa¬ 
sion to run through your pockets, and I see that you 
aren’t very well supplied with cash. Don’t be fool¬ 
ish. Take the money I leave you, and, when you’re 
back on your feet, I know that you’ll repay it at your 
own leisure. 

And here’s best luck to you and the girl. 

Henry Allister. 

Andrew lifted the chamois sack carelessly, and out of 
its mouth tumbled a stream of gold. One by one he 
picked up the pieces and replaced them; he hesitated, and 
then put the sack in his pocket. How could he refuse a 
gift so delicately made? 

A broken kitchen knife had been thrust through a bit 
of the paper on the box. He read this next: 

Your boss is known. So Im leavin you one in 
place of the pinto. He goes good and he dont need 


TOWARD THE FAR HORIZON 


107 

no spurrin but when you come behind him keep 
watchin your step, your pal, Larry Lax Roche. 

Blankets and slicker, money, horse. A flask of whisky 
stood on another slip of the paper. And the writing on 
this was much more legible. 

Here’s a friend in need. When you come to a 
pinch, use it. And when you come to a bigger pinch 
send word to your friend, Scottie Macdougal. 

Andrew picked it up, set it down again, and smiled. 
On the fur coat there was a fifth tag. Not one of the 
five, then, had forgotten him. 

Its comin on cold, partner. Take this coat and 
welcome. When the snows get on the mountains 
if you aint out of the desert put on this coat and 
think of your partner, Joe Clune. 

P. S.—I seen you first, and I have first call on 
you over the rest of these gents and you can figure 
that you have first call on me. J. C. 

When he had read all these little letters, when he had 
gathered his loot before him, Andrew lifted his head and 
could have burst into song. A tenderness for all men 
was surging up in him. This much thieves and mur¬ 
derers had done for him; what would the good men of 
the world do? How would they meet him halfway? 

He went into the kitchen. They had forgotten 
nothing. There was a quantity of ^^chuck,” flour, bacon, 
salt, coffee, a frying pan, a cup, a canteen. And this in¬ 
scription was on it: ‘To Andy, from the boys.” 

It brought the tears into his eyes and a lump in his 
throat. He cast open the back door, and, standing in 
the little pasture, he saw only one horse remaining. It 


io8 


FREE RANGE FANNING 


was a fine, young chestnut gelding with a Roman nose 
and long, mulish ears. His head was not beautiful to 
see from any angle, but Andrew saw only the long, pow¬ 
erful, sloping shoulders, the long neck, burdened by no 
spare flesh, the legs fine-drawn as hammered bronze, and 
appearing fully as strong. Every detail of the body 
spelled speed, and speed meant safety. From the famous 
gray stallion of Hal Dozier this gelding could never 
escape, Andrew knew, but the chestnut could undoubt¬ 
edly distance any posse which had no greater speed than 
the pace of its slowest horse. And he saw with pleas¬ 
ure, too, the deep chest and the belly not too finely drawn. 
That chest meant staying powers, and that stomach 
meant a horse which would not be ‘^ganted’^ in a few days 
of hard work. 

What wonder, then, that Andrew began to see the 
world through a bright mist ? What wonder that when 
he had finished his breakfast he sang while he roped the 
chestnut, built the pack behind the saddle, and filled the 
saddlebags. When he was in the saddle, the gelding 
took at once the cattle path with a long and easy canter 
that did the heart of the young rider good. 

He gave the chestnut a mile of that pace. Then he 
shook him out into a small gallop; then he sent him into 
a headlong racing pace for a quarter of a mile. That| 
done, he reined in the horse to a lope again and, lean¬ 
ing far over, he listened. The breath of the gelding came 
in deep puffs, but it whistled down as cleanly as if he had 
just had a canter across the pasture. Andrew nodded 
in satisfaction. 

With his head cleared by sleep, his muscles and nerves ; 
relaxed, his heart made strong by the gifts of the out- 1 
laws, Andrew began, to plan his escape with more calm j 
deliberation than before. ; 



TOWARD THE FAR HORIZON 


109 

If what Scottie had heard was true, and he had been 
proclaimed an outlaw, it would still be some time before 
the State could rush the posters from the printing press 
and distribute them through the countryside—the printed 
posters announcing the size of the reward and contain¬ 
ing a minute description of Andrew Fanning, height, 
weight, color of eyes and hair. And in the interval be¬ 
fore those posters came out, Andy must break out of the 
mountain desert and lose himself among the towns beyond 
the hills. There he could start to work, not as a black¬ 
smith, but as a carpenter, and drift steadily east with his 
new profession of a builder until he was lost in the mul¬ 
titude of some great city. And after that it would be 
a long road indeed—but after that there was the back 
trail to Anne Withero. And no matter how long, she 
had promised that she would never forget. 

The first goal, then, was the big blue cloud on the 
northern horizon—a good week's journey ahead of him 
—the Little Canover Mountains. Among the foothills 
lay the cordon of small towns which it would be nis chief 
difficulty to pass. For, if the printed notices describing 
him were circulated among them, the countryside would 
be up in arms, prepared to intercept his flight. Other¬ 
wise, there would be nothing but telephoned and tele¬ 
graphed descriptions of him, which, at best, could only 
come to the ears of a few, and these few would be neces¬ 
sarily put out by the slightest difference between him and 
the description. Such a vital difference, for instance, as 
the fact that he now rode a chestnut, while the instruc¬ 
tions called for a man on a pinto. 

Moreover, it was by no means certain that Hal Dozier, 
great trailer though he was, would know that the fugi¬ 
tive was making for the northern mountains. With all 
these things in mind, in spite of the pessimism of Henry 


no FREE RANGE FANNING 

Allister, Andrew felt that he had far more than a fight¬ 
ing chance to break out of the mountain desert and into 
the comparative safety of the crowded country beyond. 

He made one mistake in the beginning. He pushed 
the chestnut too hard the first and second days, because 
the blue cloud of the Little Canovers did not grow clearer, 
and, when the atmosphere thickened toward the evening, 
they entirely disappeared; so that on the third day he 
was forced to give the gelding his head and go at a jar¬ 
ring trot most of the day. On the fourth and fifth days, 
however, he had the reward for his caution. The chest¬ 
nut’s ribs were beginning to show painfully, but he kept 
doggedly at his work with no sign of faltering. The 
sixth day brought Andrew Fanning in close view of the 
lower hills. And on the seventh day he put his fortune 
boldly to the touch and jogged into the first little town 
before him. 


CHAPTER XVI 

IN ROOM SEVENTEEN 

I T was just after the hot hour of the afternoon. The 
shadows from the hills to the west were beginning 
to drop across the village; people who had kept to their 
houses during the early afternoon now appeared on their 
porches. Small boys and girls, returning from school, 
were beginning to play. Their mothers were at the open 
doors exchanging shouted pieces of news and greetings, 
and Andrew picked his way with care along the street. 
It was a town flung down in the throat of a ravine with¬ 
out care or pattern. Houses appeared absurdly on sharp 
hilltops, and again in gullies, where the winter rains must 
threaten the foundations, at least, once a year. There 
was not even one street, but rather a collection of strag¬ 
gling paths which met about a sort of open square, on 
the sides of which were the stores and the inevitable 
saloons and hotel. 

But the narrow path along which Andrew rode was 
a gantlet to him. Before he came among the houses he 
had rolled a cigarette, and now he smoked it with en¬ 
forced carelessness; and, though his heart was thudding 
at his ribs painfully, he made the gelding move slowly. 
He was intent on appearing at all costs the casual trav¬ 
eler. And he could not know how completely he failed 
in his part. For the shop pallor, which years of work 
had given Andrew, was not yet gone. His was one of 
those white skins which never satisfactorily takes on a 
tan; and, to contrast with that skin, he had intense black 


II2 


FREE RANGE FANNING 


eyes which, no matter how casual he attempted to make 
their glances, burned into the faces of those he passed. 

It was impossible for him to pass any man, woman, or 
child without searching the face. For all he knew, the 
placards might be already out, one of the least of those 
he passed might have recognized him. He noticed that ^ 
one or two women, in their front door, stopped in the ! 
midst of a word to watch him curiously. It seemed to 
Andrew that a buzz of comment and warning preceded 
him and closed behind him. He felt sure that the chil¬ 
dren stood and gaped at him from behind, but he dared 
not turn in his saddle to look back. 

At all costs he must get into the heart of this place, 
hear men talk, learn if those placards were up, and dis¬ 
cover if any posses were out to search the road for the 
wanderer. And he kept on, reining in the gelding, and' 
probing every face with one swift, resistless glance that 
went to the heart. He had been accustomed, in the old 
days, to look straight before him, and see no one. He : 
had been apt to pass even old acquaintances without notic¬ 
ing them, but those times were far in the past. Now it 
was a matter of necessity. He dared not let a single 
one go by. He found himself literally taking the brains 
and hearts of men into the palm of his hand and weigh¬ 
ing them. Yonder old man, so quiet, with the bony fin¬ 
gers clasped around the bowl of his corncob, sitting with 
blank eyes under the awning by the watering trough— I 
that would be an ill man to cross in a pinch—that hand 
would be steady as a rock on the barrel of a gun. But 
the big, square man with the big, square face who talked 
so loudly on the porch of yonder store—there was a bag; 
of wind that could be punctured by one threat and turned 
into a figure of tallow by the sight of a gun. Here was! 
a pair of honest eyes on which the glance of Andrew- 


IN ROOM SEVENTEEN 


113 

caught and clung a moment. Ah, those were the eyes 
which he must fear now! For they belonged to the side 
of law and order, and the owner of them would stamp 
him underfoot like a snake in the house. Yonder was 
a pair of small, bright, shifting eyes that Andrew was 
glad to see. A whispered word, a coin slipped into the 
palm of that man, and he might be made useful. 

Andrew went on with his lightning summary of the 
things he passed. Human nature had been a blank to 
him before. Now he found it a crowded book, written 
in letters, sometimes so large and bold that the facts 
stared at him, and sometimes so small, an important thing 
was scrawled away in corners which he almost over¬ 
looked. 

But he came to the main square, the heart of the town. 
It was quite empty. He went across to the hotel, tied 
the gelding at the rack, and sat down on the veranda. 
He wanted with all his might to go inside, to get a room, 
to be alone and away from this battery of searching eyes. 
But he dared not. He must mingle with these people 
and learn what they knew. 

An old man beside him began talking—rambling on— 
asking questions. Was he out of the south? Had he 
come by Bill JowetBs place by any chance? Bill Jowett 
was an old friend. His wife was ‘‘took bad” a few 
weeks since with some heart trouble. The maundering 
voice droned on; the little, dull eyes kept wandering 
about the square, and Andrew came to the verge of a 
mad explosion. That impulse alarmed him and taught 
him the guard which he must keep over his tongue. As 
it was, he turned and, with one angry glance, silenced the 
old man. Then, alarmed at what he had done, he went 
in and sought the bar. 

It should be there, if anywhere, the poster with the 


FREE RANGE FANNING 


114 

announcement of Andrew Fanning’s outlawry and the 
picture of him. What picture would they take? The 
old snapshot of the year before, which Jasper had taken? 
No doubt that would be the one. But much as he yearned 
to do so, he dared not search the wall. He stood up to 
the bar and faced the bartender. The latter favored 
him with one searching glance, and then pushed across 
the whisky bottle. 

How did he know that Andrew wanted whisky ? The 
bartender knew at a glance he was not confronted with 
a government agent, but a ‘‘regular fellow” of the West¬ 
ern country. “Do you know me?” asked Andrew with 
surprise. And then he could have cursed his careless 
tongue. 

“I know you’re safe and need a drink,” said the bar¬ 
tender, looking at Andrew again. Suddenly he grinned. 
“When a man’s been dry that long he gets a hungry look 
around the eyes that I know. Hit her hard, boy.” 

Andrew brimmed his glass and tossed off the drink. 
And to his astonishment there was none of the shock¬ 
ing effect of his first drink of whisky. It stung his 
throat, it burned in his stomach for a moment, but it was 
like a drop of water tossed on a huge blotter. To his 
tired nerves the alcohol was a mere nothing. Besides, he 
dared not let it affect him. He filled a second glass, push¬ 
ing across the bar one of the gold pieces of Henry Allister. 
Then, turning casually, he glanced along the wall. There 
were other notices up—many written ones—but not a 
single face looked back at him. All at once he grew 
weak with relief. But in the meantime he must talk to 
this fellow. 

“What’s the news?” 

“What kind of news?” 


IN' ROOM SEVENTEEN 115 

‘"Any kind. Eve been talkin' more to coyotes than to 
men for a long spell." 

Should he have said that? Was not that a suspicious 
speech? Did it not expose him utterly? 

‘‘Nothin' to talk about here much more excitin' than 
a coyote’s yap. Not a damn thing. Which way you 
come from?" 

“South. The last I heard of excitin’ news was this 
stuff about Lanning, the outlaw." 

It was out, and he was glad of it. He had taken the 
bull by the horns. 

“Lanning? Lanning? Never heard of him. Oh, 
yes, the gent that bumped off Bill Dozier. Between you 
and me, they won't be any sobbin' for that. Bill had it 
cornin’. He's been huntin' trouble too long. But 
they’ve outlawed Lanning, have they ?’’ 

“That's what I hear.” 

But sweet beyond words had been this speech from 
the bartender. They had barely heard of Andrew Lan¬ 
ning in this town; they did not even know that he was 
outlawed. Andrew felt hysterical laughter bubbling in 
his throat. Now for one long sleep; then he would make 
the ride across the mountains and into safety. That 
sleep on a soft bed, he felt, would give him the strength 
of a Hercules. 

He went out of the barroom, put the gelding away in 
the stables behind the hotel, and got a room. In ten 
minutes, pausing only to tear the boots from his feet, he 
was sound asleep under the very gates of freedom. 

And while he slept the gates were closing and barring 
the way. If he had wakened even an hour sooner, all 
would have been well and, though he might have dusted 
the skirts of danger, they could never have blocked his 
way. But, with seven days of exhausting travel behind 


FREE RANGE FANNING 


Ii6 

him, he slept like one drugged, the clock around and 
more. It was morning, mid-morning, when he wakened. 

Even then he was too late, but he wasted priceless min¬ 
utes using the luxury of hot water to shave. He wasted 
more priceless minutes eating his breakfast, for it was 
delightful beyond words to have food served to him 
which he had not cooked with his own hands. And so, 
sauntering out onto the veranda of the hotel, he saw a 
compact crowd on the other side of the square and the 
crowd focused on a man who was tacking up a sign. 
Andrew, still sauntering, joined the crowd, and looking 
over their heads, he found his own face staring back at 
him; and, under the picture of that lean, serious face, in 
huge black type, five thousand dollars reward for the 
capture, dead or alive- 

The rest of the notice blurred before his eyes. 

Some one was speaking. “You made a quick trip, 
Mr. Dozier, and I expect if you send word up to Hallo- 
well in the mountains they can-” 

So Hal Dozier had brought the notices himself. 

Andrew, in that moment, became perfectly calm. And 
he felt that tingling nervousness in his knees, in his 
elbows, and thrilling into the tips of his fingers. 

He went back to the hotel, and, resting one elbow on 
the desk, he looked calmly into the face of the clerk and 
the proprietor. Instantly he saw that the men did not 
suspect—as yet. 

“I hear Mr. Dozier's here?" he asked. 

“Room seventeen," said the clerk. “Hold on. He’s 
out in the square now." 

“ ’S all right. I’ll wait in his room." 

He went to room seventeen. The door was unlocked. 
And drawing a chair into the farthest corner, Andrew sat 
down, rolled a cigarette, drew his revolver, and waited. 



CHAPTER XVII 

HEAVEN AND HELL 

H e waited an eternity; in actual time it was exactly 
ten minutes. Then a cavalcade tramped down the 
hall. He heard their voices, and Hal Dozier was among 
them. About him flowed a babble of questions as the 
men struggled for the honor of a word from the great 
man. Perhaps he was coming to his room to form the 
posse and issue general instructions for the chase. 

The door opened. Dozier entered, jerked his head 
squarely to one side, and found himself gazing into the 
muzzle of a revolver. The astonishment and the swift 
hardening of his face had begun and ended in a frac¬ 
tion of a second. 

“It’s you, eh ?” he said, still holding the door. 

“Right,” said Andrew. “I’m here for a little chat 
hbout this Tanning you’re after.” 

Hal Dozier paused another heartbreaking second, then 
he saw that caution was the better way. “I’ll have to 
shut you out for a minute or two, boys. Go down to 
the bar and have a few on me.” He turned, laughing 
and waving to them, and Andrew’s heart went out to 
such consummate coolness, such remarkable nerve. Then 
the door closed, and Dozier turned slowly to face his 
hunted man. Their glances met, held, and probed each 
other deeply, and each of them recognized the man in the 
other. Into Andrew’s mind came back the words of 
the great outlaw, Allister: “There’s one man I’d think 
twice about meeting, and that-” 


ii8 


FREE RANGE FANNING 


‘^Sit down,” said Andrew. ‘‘And you can take off 
your belt if you want to. Easy! That’s it. Thank 
you.” 

The belt and the guns were tossed onto the bed, and 
Hal Dozier sat down. He reminded Andrew of a ter¬ 
rier, not heavy, but all compact nerve and fighting force 
—one of those rare men who are both solid and wiry. 
“I’ll not frisk you for another gun,” said Andrew. 
“Thanks; I have one, but I’ll let it lie.” 

He made a movement. “If you don’t mind,” said 
Andrew, “I’d rather that you don’t reach into your pock¬ 
ets. Use my tobacco and papers, if you wish.” He 
tossed them onto the table, and Hal Dozier rolled his 
smoke in silence. Then he tilted back in his chair a 
little. His hand with the cigarette was as steady as a 
vise, and Andrew, shrugging forward his own ponder¬ 
ous shoulders, dropped his elbows on his knees and 
trained the gun full on his companion. 

“I’ve come to make a bargain, Dozier,” he said. 

The other made no comment, and the two continued 
that silent struggle of the eyes that was making Andrew’s 
throat dry and his heart leap. ' ^ 

“Here’s the bargain: Drop off this trail. Let the 
law take its own course through other hands, but you« 
give me your word to keep off the trail. If you’ll do that ^ 
I’ll leave this country and stay away. Except for oneM 
thing. I’ll never come back here. You’re a proud man r^ 
you’ve never quit a trail yet before the end of it. BuU® 
this time I only ask you to let it go with running me out ; 
of the country.” | 

“What’s the one thing for which you’d come back?” j 

“We’re talking in confidence?” | 

“Certainly, Tanning.” I 

That small thing made a vast deal of difference to 




HEAVEN AND HELL 119 

Andrew. For ten years he had been ‘‘Andy’" to this 
man; now he was ^‘Lanning.” For the first time, prob¬ 
ably, he felt the meaning of Bill’s death to his brother. 

‘‘Fll come back—once—because of a girl.” 

He saw the eyes of Dozier widen and then contract 
again. ‘^You’re not exactly what I expected to find,” 
he said. “But go on. If I don’t take the bargain you 
pull that trigger?” 

“Exactly.” 

“H’m! You may have heard the voices of the men 
who came up the hall with me ?” 

“Yes.” 

“The moment a report of a gun is heard they’ll swarm 
up to this room and get you.” 

“They made too much noise. Barking dogs don’t 
bite. Besides, the moment I’ve dropped you I go out 
that window.” 

“You’ll break a leg with the drop.” 

“Get up and stand at that window and look down. 
No, keep both your hands at your sides, if you please. 
That’s better.” 

Hal Dozier went obediently to the window and looked 
down to the saddled horse beneath. “You’d jump for 
that saddle and ride like the wind.” 

“Right again, Dozier.” 

“Suppose you missed the saddle?” 

Andrew smiled, but his smile gradually went out be¬ 
fore a gradual wrinkling around the eyes of the other. 

“It’s a good bluff, Lanning,” said the other. “I’ll 
tell you what, if you were what I expected you to be, a 
hysterical kid, who had a bit of bad luck and good rolled 
together, I’d take that offer. But you’re different— 
you’re a man. All in all, Lanning, I think you’re about 
as much of a man as I’ve ever crossed before. No, you 


120 


FREE RANGE FANNING 


won’t pull that trigger, because there isn’t one deliberate 
murder packed away in your system. It’s a good bluff, 
as I said before, and I admire the way you worked it. 
But it won’t do. I call it. I won’t leave your trail, 
Fanning. Now pull your trigger.” 

He smiled straight into the eye of the younger man. 
A flush jumped into the cheeks of Andrew, and, fading, 
left him by contrast paler than ever. “You were one- 
quarter of an inch from death, Dozier,” he replied, “and 
I was the same distance from being a yellow cur.” 

“Fanning, with men like you—^and like myself, I hope 
—there’s no question of distance. It’s either a miss or 
a hit. Here’s a better proposition: Fet me put my belt 
on again. Then put your own gun back in the holster. 
We’ll turn and face the wall. And when the clock down¬ 
stairs strikes ten—that’ll be within a few minutes—we’ll 
turn and blaze at the first sound.” 

He watched his companion eagerly, and he saw the 
face of Andrew work. “I can’t do it, Dozier,” said 
Andrew. “I’d like to. But I can’t!” 

“Why not?” The voice of Hal Dozier was sharp 
with a new suspicion. “You say that the rest of these 
fellows are barking dogs, and that you don’t fear ’em. 
Get me out of the way, and you’re free to get across the 
mountains, and, once there, your trail will never be found. 
I know that; every one knows that. That’s why I hit 
up here after you.” 

“I’ll tell you why,” said Andrew slowly. “I’ve got 
the blood of one man on my hands already, but, so help 
me God, I’m not going to have another stain. I had 
to shoot once, because I was hounded into it. And, if 
this thing keeps on. I’m going to shoot again—and again. 
But as long as I can I’m fighting to keep clean, you un¬ 
derstand?” 


HEAVEN AND HELL 


I 2 I 


His voice became thin and rose as he spoke; his breath 
was a series of gasps, and Hal Dozier changed color. 

'‘I think,’’ said Andrew, regaining his self-control, 
'hhat I’d kill you. I think I’m just a split second surer 
and faster than you are with a gun. But don’t you see, 
Dozier ?” 

He cast out his left hand, but his right hand held the 
revolver like a rock. 

‘'Don’t you see? I’ve got the taint in me. I’ve killed 
my man. If I kill another I’ll go bad. I know it. Life 
will mean nothing to me. I can feel it in me.” 

His voice fell and became deeper. 

“Dozier, give me my chance. It’s up to you. Stand 
aside now, and I’ll get across those mountains and be¬ 
come a decent man. Keep me here, and I’ll be a killer. 
I know it; you know it. Dozier, you can make me or 
break me. You can make me a good citizen, or you can 
turn me into something that people will remember around 
here for a long time. Why are you after me? Be¬ 
cause your brother was killed by me. Dozier, think of 
your brother and then look at me. Was his life worth 
my life? He was your brother, and that’s the reason I 
say it. You’re a cool-headed man. You knew him, and 
you knew what he was worth. A fighter, he loved fight¬ 
ing, and he picked his chances for it. His killings were 
as long as the worst bad man that ever stepped, except 
that he had the law behind him. When he got on my 
trail he knew that I was just a scared kid who thought 
he’d killed a man. But he ran me down with his gang. 
Why didn’t he give me a chance? Why didn’t he let 
me run until I found out that I hadn’t killed Buck Heath ? 
Then he knew, and you know, that I’d have come back. 
But he wouldn’t give me the chance. He ran me into 
the ground, and I shot him down. And that minute he 


122 


FREE RANGE FANNING 


turned me from a scared kid into an outlaw—a killer. 
Tell me, man to man, Dozier, if Bill hasn’t already done 
me more wrong than I’ve done him!” 

As he finished that strange appeal he noted that the 
famous fighter was white about the mouth and shaken. 
He added with a burst of appeal: “Dozier, if it’s pride 
that holds you back, look at me! I’m not proud. I’ll 
get down there on my knees. I’ll beg you to let me go 
and give me a chance. You can open the door and let 
the others look in at me while I’m beggin’. That’s how 
little pride I have. Do you think I’d let shame keep me 
out of heaven?” 

For heaven was the girl, and Dozier, looking into that 
white face and those brilliant black eyes, knew it. If he 
had been shaken before, he was sunk in gloom now. 

And then there was a last appeal, a last agony of appeal 
from Andrew: “Hal, you know I’m straight. You 
know I’m worth a chance.” 

The older man lifted his head at last. 

“Pride won’t keep you out of heaven, Andy, but pride 
will keep me out. And pride will send me to perdition. 
Andy, I can’t leave the trail.” 

At that sentence every muscle of Andrew’s body re¬ 
laxed, and he sat like one in a state of collapse, except 
that the right hand and the gun in it were steady as rocks. 

“Here’s something between you and me that I’d swear 
I never said if I was called in a court,” went on Hal 
Dozier in a solemn murmur. “I’ll tell you that I know 
Bill was no good. I’ve known it for years, and I’ve 
told him so. It’s Bill that bled me, and bled me until 
I’ve had to soak a mortgage on the ranch. It’s Bill that’s 
spent the money on his cussed booze and gambling. 
Until now there’s a man that can squeeze and ruin me 
any day, and that’s Merchant. He sent me hot along 


HEAVEN AND HELL 


123 

this trail. He sent me, but my pride sent me also. No, 
son, I wasn’t bought altogether. And if Fd known as 
much about you then as I know now, Fd never have 
started to hound you. But now Fve started. Every¬ 
body in the mountains, every puncher on the range knows 
that Hal Dozier has started on a new trail, and every 
man of them knows that I’ve never failed before. Andy, 
I can’t give it up. You see, Fve got no shame before 
you. I tell you the straight of it. I tell you that I’m a 
bought man. But I can’t leave this trail to go back and 
face the boys. If one of them was to shake his head 
and say on the side that I’m no longer the man I used 
to be, Fd shoot him dead as sure as there’s a reckoning 
that I’m bound for. It isn’t you, Andy; it’s my reputa¬ 
tion that makes me go on.” 

He stopped, and the two men looked sadly at each 
other. 

'^Aridy, boy,” said Hal Dozier, ‘I’ve no more bad 
feeling toward you than if you was my own boy.” Then 
he added with a little ring to his voice: “But I’m going 
to stay on your trail till I kill you. You write that down 
in red.” 

And the outlaw dropped his gun suddenly into the 
holster. 

“That ends it, then,” he said slowly. “I don’t feel 
the way you do, Hal. I’m beginning to hate you, be¬ 
cause you stand between me and the girl. I’m as frank 
as you are, you see. And the next time we meet we 
won’t sit down and chin friendly like. We’ll let our 
guns do our talking for us. And, first of all. I’m going 
to get across these mountains, Hal, in spite of you and 
your friends.” 

“You can’t do it, Andy. Try it. I’ve sent the word 


FREE RANGE FANNING 


124 

up. The whole mountains will be alive watchin’ for you. 
Every trail will be alive with guns.'’ 

But Andrew stood up, and, using always his left hand 
while the right arm hung with apparent carelessness at 
his side, he arranged his hat so that it came forward at 
a jaunty angle, and then hitched his belt around so that 
the holster hung a little more to the rear. The position 
for a gun when one is sitting is quite different from the 
proper position when one is standing. All these things 
Uncle Jasper had taught Andrew long and long before. 
He was remembering them in chunks. 

'‘Give me three minutes to get my saddle on my horse 
and out of town," said Andrew. “Is that fair?" 

“Considering that you could have filled me full of lead 
here," said Hal Dozier, with a wry smile, “I think that’s 
fair enough." 

“Are you riding Gray Peter?" asked Andrew from the 
door, to which he backed with instinctive caution. 

“Of course." 

“He’ll be safe, Hal. No matter how you press me. 
I’ll never take a bead on that horse. Why, God bless 
him, I’ve ridden him myself!" 

“You didn’t have to tell me that," said Hal. “Skunks 
that shoot houses don’t look down their rifles with your 
kind of eyes, Andy." 

There was a moisture in the eyes of Hal Dozier as the 
door closed, and Andrew’s quick, light step went down 
the hall. 


CHAPTER XVIII 


LIKE A RED FLASH 


S Andrew went down the stairs and through the 



XX entrance hall he noticed it was filled with armed 
men. He saw half a dozen looking over the working 
parts of their rifles in the corners of the room. At the 
door he paused for the least fraction of a second, and 
during that breathing space he had seen every face in 
the room. Then he walked carelessly across to the desk 
and asked for his bill. 

Some one, as he crossed the room, whirled to follow 
him with a glance. When Andy paid his bill he heard, 

for his ears were sharpened, “I thought for a minute-- 

But it does look like him !’^ 

‘‘Aw, Mike, I seen that gent in the barroom the other 
day. Besides, he's just a kid." 

‘^‘So’s this Tanning. Pm going out to look at the 
poster again. You hold this gent here." 

“All right, ni talk to him while you're gone. But be 
quick. I’ll be holdin’ a laugh for you, Mike." 

Andrew paid his bill, but as he reached the door a short 
man with legs bowed by a life in the saddle waddled out 
to him and said: “Just a minute, partner. Are you 
one of us ?" 

“One of who?" asked Andrew. 

“One of the posse Hal is getting together? Well, 
come to think of it, I guess you're a stranger around 
here, ain’t you?" 


126 


FREE RANGE FANNING 


''Me?’’ asked Andrew. "Why, I’ve just been talking 
to Hal.” 

"About young Fanning?” 

"Yes.” 

"By the way, if you’re out of Hal’s country, maybe you 
know Fanning, too?” 

"Sure. I’ve stood as close to him as I am to you.” 

"You don’t say so! What sort of a looking fellow 
is he?” 

"Well, I’ll tell you,” said Andrew, and he smiled in an 
embarrassed manner. "They say he’s a ringer for me. 
Not much of a compliment, is it?” 

The other gasped, and then laughed heartily. "No, 
it ain’t, at that,” he replied. "Say, I got a pal that 
wants to talk to you. Sort of a job on him, at that.” 

"I’ll tell you what,” said Andy calmly. "Take him in 
to the bar, and I’ll come in and have a drink with him and 
you in about two minutes. S’long.” 

He was gone through the door while the other half 
reached a hand toward him. But that was all. 

In the stables he had the saddle on the chestnut in 
twenty seconds, and brought him to the watering trough 
before the barroom. 

He found his short, bow-legged friend in the barroom 
in the midst of excited talk with a big, blond man. He 
looked a German, with his parted beard and his impos¬ 
ing front and he had the stern blue eye of a fighter. "Is 
this your friend?” asked Andrew, and walked straight 
up to them. He watched the eyes of the big man ex¬ 
pand and then narrow; his hand even fumbled at his 
hip, but then he shook his head. He was too bewildered 
to act. 

"I was just telling Mike,” said the short man, "that 
you told me yourself folks think you’re a ringer for 


LIKE A RED FLASH 127 

Lanning. As a matter of fact—get in on this—Mike 
thought you was Lanning himself/' He began to laugh 
heartily. 

‘'Can't you picture Lanning bangin' around the same 
hotel where Hal Dozier is ?" 

“Well, let’s drink," smiled Andy. While the others 
were poising their glasses he took a stub of a pencil out 
of his vest pocket and scribbled idly on the top of the 
bar. They drank, and Andy wandered slowly toward 
the door, waving his hand to the others. But the short 
man was busy trying to decipher the scribbled writing 
on the bar. 

“It's words, Mike," he informed his companion. “But 
I can't get the light right for reading it." 

At the same time there was a hubbub and an uproar 
from the upper part of the hotel. A dozen men were 
shouting from the lobby. And the men in the barroom 
started crowding toward the door. 

“Wait," cried the short man. “Mike, listen to what 
he wrote: ‘Dear Mike, in a pinch always believe what 
your eyes tell you. Lanning.’ 

“Mike, it was him!" 

But Mike, with a roar, was already rushing for the 
street. Others were before him; a fighting mass jammed 
its way into the open, and there, in the middle of the 
square, sat Hal Dozier on his gray stallion. He was 
giving orders in a voice that rang above the crowd, and 
made voices hush in whispers as they heard him. Under 
his direction the crowd split into groups of four and five 
and six and rode at full speed in three directions out of 
the town. In the meantime there were two trusted 
friends of Hal Dozier busy at telephones in the hotel. 
They were calling little towns among the mountains. 


128 


FREE RANGE FANNING 


The red alarm was spreading like wildfire, and faster 
than the fastest horse could gallop. 

But Andrew, with the chestnut running like a red 
flash beneath him, shot down the tangle of paths on the 
same course as that by which he entered. 

He would have been interested had he heard the quiet 
remark of the very old man with the bony hands, who 
sat under the awning by the watering trough of the store. 

'T knew that young gent was coming to town to raise 
blazes and there he goes with blazes roarin’ after him.” 

As the first rush of the pursuers came foaming around 
the nearest corner, the storekeeper darted out. 

“What’s up ?” he asked. 

“Nothin’,” said the very old man, “but times is pickin’ 
up. Oh, times is pickin’ up amazin’!” 

In the meantime the first squadron went down the 
lanes, five men like five thunderbolts, but they took care 
not to exceed the speed of the slowest of their comrades, 
for it was suicide obviously to get into a lonely lead be¬ 
hind a man who could drop his man at five hundred yards 
from horseback—from running horseback, the story 
had it. 

However, these five were only one unit among many. 
Two more were pushing up the ravine, making good 
time into the heart of the mountains; others were angling 
out to the right and left, always on the lookout, and al¬ 
ways warning man, woman, and child to take up the 
alarm and spread it. And not only were the telephone 
lines working busily, but that strange and swift mes¬ 
senger, rumor, was instantly at work, buzzing in strange 
places. It stopped the cow-puncher on the range. It 
stopped the plowman with his team, and made him think 
what one slug of lead would mean to his farm; it set the 
boys in school drawing up schedules of how they would 


LIKE A RED FLASH 


129 


spend five thousand dollars. And not five thousand 
alone. There was talk that, besides the State, rich John 
Merchant, in the far south near Martindale, would con¬ 
tribute generously. The cattlemen, the poor farmers of 
the hills, every man and child in that region of mountains, 
was ready to look and report, or look and shoot. 

But Andrew Banning, though he guessed at all this and 
more, kept straight on his course. He did not, indeed, 
cut straight into the heart of the mountains, for he knew 
that the districts just above would be thoroughly alarmed. 
But he had a very good reason for making his strike for 
liberty in this direction, in spite of the fact that the 
mountains were lower and easier on either side. 

Buried away in the mountains, one stiff day’s march, 
was a trapper whom Uncle Jasper had once befriended. 
That was many a day long since, but Uncle Jasper had 
saved the man’s life, and he had often told Andrew that, 
sooner or later, he must come to that trapper’s cabin to 
talk of the old times. 

He was bound there now. For, if he could get shelter 
for three days, the hue and cry would subside. When 
the mountaineers were certain that he must have gone 
past them to other places and slipped through their greedy 
fingers he could ride on in comparative safety. It was 
an excellent plan. It gave Andrew such a sense of safety, 
as he trotted the chestnut up a steep grade, that he did not 
hear another horse, coming in the opposite direction, un¬ 
til the latter was almost upon him. Then, coming about 
a sharp shoulder of the hill, he almost ran upon a bare- 
legged boy, who rode without saddle upon the back of a 
bay mare. The mare leaped catlike to one side, and her 
little rider clung like a piece of her hide. “You might 
holler, cornin’ around a turn,” shrilled the boy. And he 
brought the mare to a halt by jerking the rope around 


FREE RANGE FANNING 


130 

her neck. He had no other means of guiding her, no 
sign of a bridle. 

But Andrew looked with hungry eyes. He knew 
something of horses, and this bay fitted into his dreams 
of an ideal perfectly. She was beautiful, quite heavily 
built in the body, with a great spread of breast that surely 
told of an honest heart beneath a glorious head, legs that 
fairly shouted to Andrew of good blood, and, above all, 
she had that indescribable thing which is to a horse what 
personality is to a man. She did not win admiration, 
she commanded it And she stood alert at the side of the 
road, looking at Andrew like a queen. Horse stealing is 
the last crime and the cardinal sin in the mountain desert, 
but Andrew felt the moment he saw her that she must be 
his. At least he would first try to buy her honorably. 

‘^Son,’^ he said to the urchin, ‘‘how much for that 
horse T' 

“Why,’’ said the boy, “anything you’ll give.” 

“Don’t laugh at me,” said Andrew sternly. “I like 
her looks and I’ll buy her. I’ll trade this chestnut—and 
he’s a fine traveler—with a good price to boot. If your 
father lives up the road and not down, turn back with 
me and I’ll see if I can’t make a trade.” 

“You don’t have to see him,” said the boy. “I can 
tell you that he’ll sell her. You throw in the chestnut 
and you won’t have to give any boot.” And he grinned. 

“But there’s the house.” He pointed across the ra¬ 
vine at a little green-roofed shack buried in the rocks. 
“You can come over if you want to.” 

“Is there something wrong with her?” 

“Nothin’ much.” 

“She looks sound. She stands well.” 

“Sure!” Pop says she’s the best boss that ever run 
in these parts. And he knows. I’ll tell a man I” 


LIKE A RED FLASH 


131 

‘‘Son, Fve got to have that horse T* 

“She’s yours.” 

“How much?” 

“Mister,” said the boy suddenly, “I know how you feel. 
Lots feel the same way. You want her bad, but she 
ain’t worth her feed. A skunk put a bur under the saddle 
when she was bein’ broke, and since then anybody can 
ride her bareback, but nothin’ in the mountains can sit 
a saddle on her.” 

Andrew cast one more long, sad look at the horse. 
He had never seen a horse that went so straight to his 
heart, and then he straightened the chestnut up the road 
and went ahead. 


CHAPTER XIX 


SANCTUARY IN THE HILLS 

H e had to be guided by what Uncle Jasper had often 
described—a mountain whose crest was split like 
the crown of a hat divided sharply by a knife, and the 
twin peaks were like the ears of a mule, except that they 
came together at the base. By the position of those dis¬ 
tant summits he knew that he was in the ravine leading 
to the cabin of Hank Rainer, the trapper. 

Presently the sun flashed on a white cliflf, a definite 
landmark by which Uncle Jasper had directed him, so 
Andrew turned out of his path on the eastern side of 
the gully and rode across the ravine. The slope was 
steep on either side, covered with rocks, thick with slides 
of loose pebbles and sand. Altogether it was by no 
means favorable territory for an average horse, and, 
though Andrew felt that the cat-footed bay mare might 
have kept a fair rate of speed, even through these rocks 
and bushes, his own horse, accustomed to a more open 
country, was continually at fault. He did not like his 
work, and kept tossing his ugly head and champing the 
bit as they went down to the river bottom. 

It was not a real river, but only an angry creek that 
went fuming and crashing through the canon with a voice 
as loud as some great stream. Andrew had to watch 
with care for a ford, for though the bed was not deep 
the water ran like a rifle bullet over smooth places and 
was torn to a white froth when it struck projecting rocks. 
He found, at length, a place where it was backed up into 


SANCTUARY IN THE HILLS 


133 

a shallow pool, and here he rode across, hardly wetting 
the belly of the gelding. Then up the far slope he was 
lost at once in a host of trees. They cut him off from 
his landmark, the white cliff, but he kept on with a feel 
for the right direction, until he came to a sudden clear¬ 
ing, and in the clearing was a cabin. It was apparently 
just a one-room shanty with a shed leaning against it 
from the rear. No doubt the shed was for the trapper’s 
horse. Also, an ancient buckboard stood with sagging 
wheels near the cabin, and, if this were indeed the house 
of Hank Rainer, he used that wagon to carry his pelts 
to town. But Andrew was amazed at the sight of the 
buckboard. He did not see how it could be used in the 
first place, and in the second place he wondered how it 
was ever drawn to that place through the forest and 
over the rocks. 

He had no time for further thought. In the open 
door of the cabin appeared a man so huge that he had to 
bend his head to look out, and Andrew’s heart fell. It 
was not the slender, rawboned youth of whom Uncle 
Jasper had told him, but a hulking giant. And then he 
remembered that twenty years had passed since Uncle 
Jasper rode that way, and in twenty years the gaunt body 
might have filled out, the shock of bright-red hair of 
which Jasper spoke might well have been the original of 
the red flood which now covered the face and throat of 
the big man. Where his hat covered it from the sun the 
hair fairly flamed; where the beard and side whiskers 
had been reached it was a faded bronze. It was a mag¬ 
nificent beard, sweeping across the chest of the man, and 
Andrew wondered at it. 

‘^Hello!” called the trapper. “Are you one of the 
boys on the trail? Well, I ain’t seen anything. Been 
about six others here already.” 


FREE RANGE FANNING 


134 

The blood leaped in Andrew, and then ran coldly back 
to his heart. Could they have outridden the gelding to 
such an extent as that ? 

“From Tomo?’" he asked. 

“Tomo? No. They come down from Gunter City, 
up yonder, and Twin Falls.’' 

And Andrew understood. Well indeed had Hal Dozier 
fulfilled his threat of rousing the mountains against this 
quarry. He glanced westward. It was yet an hour 
lacking of sundown, but since mid-morning Dozier had 
been able to send his messages so far and so wide. An¬ 
drew set his teeth. What did cunning of head and speed 
of horse count against the law when the law had electricity 
for its agent ? 

“Well," said Andrew, slipping from his saddle, “if he 
hasn't been by this way I may as well stay over for the 
night. If they've hunted the woods around here all day, 
no use in me doing it by night. Can you put me up?" 

“Can I put you up? I'll tell a man. Glad to have 
you, stranger. Gimme your boss. I'll take care of him. 
Looks like he was kind of ganted lip, don't it? Well, 
I'll give him a feed of oats that'll thicken his ribs. Bar¬ 
ley don't do nothin' but heat up a boss; oats is the thing." 

Still talking, he led the gelding into his shed. Andrew 
followed, took off the saddle, and, having led the chest¬ 
nut out and down to the creek for a drink, he returned 
and tied him to a manger which the trapper had filled 
with a liberal supply of hay, to say nothing of a feed box 
stuffed with oats. 

A man who was kind to a horse could not be treach¬ 
erous to a man, Andrew decided. 

“You're Hank Rainer, aren't you?" he asked. 

“That's me. And you ?" 

“I'm the unwelcome guest. I'm afraid," said Andrew. 


SANCTUARY IN THE HILLS 135 

“I'm the nephew of Jasper Lanning. I guess you’ll be 
remembering him?” 

“I’ll forget my right hand sooner,” said the big, red 
man calmly. But he kept on looking steadily at Andrew. 

“Well,” said Andrew, encouraged and at the same time 
repulsed by this calm silence, “my name is one you’ve 
heard. I am-” 

^ The other broke in hastily. “You are Jasper Tan¬ 
ning’s nephew. That’s all I know. What’s a name to 
me ? I don’t want to know names!” 

It puzzled Andrew, but the big man ran on smoothly 
enough: “Lanning ain’t a popular name around here, 
you see? Suppose somebody was to come around and 
say, ^Seen Lanning?’ What could I say, if you was 
here? T’ve got a Lanning here. I dunno but he’s the 
one you want.’ But suppose I don’t know anything ex¬ 
cept you’re Jasper’s nephew? Maybe you’re related on 
the mother’s side. Eh?” He winked at Andrew. 
“You come along and don’t talk too much about names.” 

He led the way into the house and picked up one of 
the posters, which lay on the floor. 

“They’ve sent those through the mountains already?” 
asked Andrew gloomily. 

“Sure! These come down from Twin Falls. Now, 
a gent with special fine eyes might find that you looked 
like the gent on this poster. But my eyes are terrible 
bad mostly. Besides, I need to quicken up that fire.” 

He crumpled the poster and inserted it beneath the 
lid of his iron stove. There was a rush and faint roar 
of the flame up the chimney as the cardboard burned. 
“And now,” said Hank Rainer, turning with a broad 
smile, “I guess they ain’t any reason why I should rec¬ 
ognize you. You’re just a plain stranger cornin’ along 
and you stop over here for the night. That all ?” 



FREE RANGE FANNING 


136 

Andrew had followed this involved reasoning with a 
rather bewildered mind, but he smiled faintly in return. 
He was bothered, in a way, by the extreme mental cau¬ 
tion of this fellow. It was kindly enough, but it was 
not altogether honest. It was as if the keen-eyed trap¬ 
per were more interested in his own foolish little subter¬ 
fuge than in preserving Andrew. 

“Now, tell me, how is Jasper?” 

“Fve got to tell you one thing first. Dozier has raised 
the mountains.” 

“He’s done just that.” 

“And I could never cross ’em now.” 

“Going to turn back into the plains ?” 

“No. The ranges are wide enough, but they’re a 
prison just the same. I’ve got to get out of ’em now or 
stay a prisoner the rest of my life, only to be trailed 
down in the end. No, I want to stay right here in your 
cabin until the men are quieted down again and think I’ve 
slipped away from ’em. Then I’ll sneak over the sum¬ 
mit and get away unnoticed.” 

“Man, man! Stay here ? Why, they’ll find you right 
off. I wonder you got the nerve to sit there now with 
maybe ten men trailin’ you to this cabin. But that’s up 
to you.” 

There was a certain careless calm about this that shook 
Andrew to his center again. But he countered: “No, 
they won’t look specially in houses. Because they won’t 
figure that any man would toss up that reward. Five 
thousand is a pile of money.” 

“It sure is,” agreed the other. He parted his red 
beard and looked up to the ceiling. “Five thousand is a 
considerable pile, all in hard cash. But mostly they hunt 
for this Andrew Tanning a dozen at a time. Well^ you 
divide five thousand by ten, and you’ve got only five 


SANCTUARY IN THE HILLS 13:7 

hundred left. That ain’t enough to tempt a man to ^ve 
up Lanning—so bad as all that.” 

'"Ah,” smiled Andrew, "'but you don’t understand what 
a stake you could make out of me. If you were to give 
information about me being here, and you brought a 
posse to get me, you’d come in for at least half of the 
reward. Besides, the five thousand isn’t all. There’s at 
least one rich gent that’ll contribute maybe that much 
more. And you’d get a good half of that. You see, 
Hal Dozier knows all that, and he knows there’s hardly 
a man in the mountains who would be able to keep away 
from selling me. So that’s why he won’t search the 
houses.” 

"‘Not you,” corrected the trapper sharply. “Andy 
Lanning is the man Dozier wants.” 

“Well, Andrew Lanning, then,” smiled the guest. “It 
was just a slip of the tongue.” 

"‘Sometimes slips like that break a man’s neck,” ob¬ 
served the trapper, and he fell into a gloomy meditation. 

And after that they talked of other things, until sup¬ 
per was cooked and eaten and the tin dishes washed and 
put away. Then they lay in their bunks and watched 
the last color in the west through the open door. 

If a member of a posse had come to the door, the first 
thing his eyes fell upon would have been Andrew Lan¬ 
ning lying on the floor on one side of the room and the 
red-bearded man on the other. But, though his host 
suggested this, Andrew refused to move his blankets. 
And he was right. The hunters were roving the open, 
and even Hal Dozier was at fault. 

“Because,” said Andrew, “he doesn’t dream that I 
could have a friend so far from home. Not five thou¬ 
sand dollars’ worth of friend, anyway.” 

And the trapper grunted heavily. 


CHAPTER XX 


HANK MAKES A GIFT 

I T was a truth long after wondered at, when the story 
of Andrew Tanning was told and retold, that he had 
lain in perfect security within a six-hour ride from 
Tomo, while Hal Dozier himself combed the mountains 
and hundreds more were out hunting fame and fortune. 
To be sure, when a stranger approached, Andrew always 
withdrew into the horse shed; but, beyond keeping up a 
steady watch during the day, he had little to do and little 
to fear. 

Indeed, at night he made no pretense toward conceal¬ 
ment, but slept quite openly on the floor on the bed of 
hay and blankets, just as Hank Rainer slept on the 
farther side of the room. And the great size of the 
reward was the very thing that kept him safe. For 
when men passed the cabin, as they often did, they were 
riding hard to get away from Tomo and into the higher 
mountains, where the outlaw might be, or else they were 
coming back to rest up, and their destination in such a 
case was always Tomo. The cabin of the trapper was 
just near enough to the town to escape being used as a 
shelter for the night by stray travelers. If they got that 
close, they went on to the luxurious beds of the hotel. 

But often they paused long enough to pass a word 
with Hank,* and Andrew, from his place behind the door 
of the horse shed, could hear it all. He could even look 
through a crack and see the faces of the strangers. They 
told how Tomo was wrought to a pitch of frenzied inter- 


HANK MAKES A GIFT 


139 

est by this man hunt. For the story of how Andrew 
Fanning had written the message on the bar and drunk 
with the man who suspected him had gone the rounds. 
It had received an embroidery of delightful conversation, 
over which Andrew chuckled many a time behind the 
door. Besides, a dozen well-to-do citizens of Tomo, 
feeling that the outlaw had insulted the town by so boldly 
venturing into it, had raised a considerable contribution 
toward the reward. Other prominent miners and cat¬ 
tlemen of the district had come forward with similar 
offers. It was determined to crush this career of crime 
before it was well started, and every day the price on 
the head of Andrew mounted to a higher and more 
tempting figure. 

It was a careless time for Andrew. After that escape 
from Tomo he was not apt to be perturbed by his pres¬ 
ent situation, but the suspense seemed to weigh more 
and more heavily upon the trapper. Hank Rainer was 
so troubled, indeed, that Andrew sometimes surprised a 
half-guilty, half-sly expression in the eyes of his host. 
He decided that Hank was anxious for the day to come 
when Andrew would ride off and take his perilous com¬ 
pany elsewhere. He even broached the subject to Hank, 
but the mountaineer flushed and discarded the sugges¬ 
tion with a wave of his hand. 

‘^But if a gang of ’em should ever hunt me down, even 
in your cabin, Hank,” said Andrew one day—it was the 
third day of his stay—‘T’ll never forget what you’ve 
done for me, and one of these days I’ll see that Uncle 
Jasper finds out about it.” 

The little, pale-blue eyes of the trapper went swiftly 
to and fro, as if he sought escape from this embarrassing 
gratitude. 

'Well,” said he, ‘T’ve been thinkin’ that the man that 


140 


FREE RANGE FANNING 


gets you, Andy, won’t be so sure with his money, after 
all. He’ll have your Uncle Jasper on his trail pronto, 
and Jasper used to be a killer with a gun in the old days.” 

“No more,” smiled Andrew. “He’s still steady as a 
rock, but he hasn’t the speed any more. He’s over sev¬ 
enty, you see. And his muscles are shriveling up, and 
his joints sort of creak when he tries to move with a 
snap.” ' 

“Ah,” muttered the trapper, and again, as he started 
through the open door, “Ah!” 

Then he added: “Well, son, you don’t need Jasper. 
If half what they say is true, you’re a handy lad with 
the guns. I suppose Jasper showed you his tricks?” 

“Yes, and we worked out some new ones together.” 

“Now you’re in a pinch, ain’t it a shame that you ain’t 
got a chance to keep in practice ?” 

“To tell the truth—don’t think I’m bragging—I don’t 
need much practice. Uncle Jasper raised me with a gun 
in my hand, you might say, and I don’t think I’ll ever 
lose the feel of a gun. You know what I mean?” 

“H’m!” said Hank Rainer. 

When they were sitting at the door in the semidusk, 
he reverted to the idea. “You been seein’ that squirrel 
that’s been runnin’ across the clearin’ ?” 

“Yes.” 

“I’d like to see you work your gun, Andy. It was a 
sight to talk about to watch Jasper, and I’m thinkin’ you 
could go him one better. S’pose you stand up there in 
the door with your back to the clearin’. The next time 
that squirrel comes scootin’ across I’ll say, ‘Now!’ and 
you try to turn and get your gun on him before he’s out 
of sight. Will you try that?” 

“Suppose some one hears it ?” 


HANK MAKES A GIFT 


141 

‘‘Oh, they’re used to me pluggin’ away for fun over 
here. Besides, they ain’t anybody lives in bearin’.” 

And Andrew, falling into the spirit of the contest, 
stood up in the door, and the old tingle of nerves, which 
never failed to come over him in the crisis, was thrilling 
through his body again. Then Hank barked the 
word, “Now!” and Andrew whirled on his heel. The 
word had served to alarm the squirrel as well. As he 
heard it, he twisted about like the snapping lash of a 
whip and darted back for cover, three yards away. He 
covered that distance like a little gray streak in the 
shadow, but before he reached it the gun spoke, and the 
forty-five-caliber slug struck him in the middle and tore 
him in two. Andrew, hearing a sharp crackling, looked 
down at his host and observed that the trapper had bit¬ 
ten clean through the stem of his corncob. 

“That,” said the red man huskily, “is some shootin’.” 

But he did not look up, and he did not smile. And it 
troubled Andrew to hear this rather grudging praise. 
That moment he wanted very much to have a fair look 
into the eyes of his host. Afterward he remembered 
this. 

In the meantime, three days had put the gelding in very 
fair condition. He was enough mustang to recuperate 
swiftly, and that morning he had tried with hungry 
eagerness to kick the head from Andrew’s shoulders. 
This had decided the outlaw. Besides, in the last day 
there had been fewer and fewer riders up and down the 
ravine, and apparently the hunt for Andrew Fanning 
had journeyed to another part of the mountains. It 
seemed an excellent time to begin his journey again, and 
he told the trapper his decision to start on at dusk the 
next day. 


142 FREE RANGE FANNING 

The announcement brought with it a long and thought¬ 
ful pause. 

“I wisht I could send you on your way with somethin’ 
worth while,” said Hank Rainer at length. “But I ain’t 
rich. I’ve lived plain and worked hard, but I ain’t rich. 
I’ve lived and worked hard, but I’ve got not so much as 
a wife nor a child. So what I can give you, Andy, won’t 
be much.” 

Andrew protested that the hospitality had been more 
than a generous gift, but Hank Rainer, looking straight 
out the door, continued: “Well, I’m goin’ down the 
road to get you my little gift, Andy. Be back in an 
hour maybe.” 

“I’d rather have you here to keep me from being 
lonely,” said Andrew. “I’ve money enough to buy wFat 
I want, but money will never buy me the talk of an hon¬ 
est man. Hank.” ' 

The other started. “Honest enough, maybe,” he said 
bitterly. “But honesty don’t get you bread or bacon, 
not in this world!” 

And presently he stamped into the shed, saddled his 
pony, and after a moment was scattering the pebbles on 
the way down the ravine. The dark and silence gathered 
over Andrew Fanning. He had little warmth of feeling 
for Hank Rainer, to be sure, but in the hush of the cabin 
he looked forward to many a long evening and many a 
long day in a silence like this, with no man near him. 
For the man who rides outside the law rides alone, and 
the thought of that loneliness made the heart of Andrew 
ache. 

He could have embraced the big man, therefore, when 
Hank finally came back, and Andrew could hear the 
pony panting in the shed, a sure sign that it had been 
ridden hard. 


HANK MAKES A GIFT 


143 

‘Tt ain’t much,” said Hank, ‘'but it’s yours, and I hope 
you get a chance to use it in a pinch.” And he dumped 
down a case of .45 cartridges. 

After all, there could have been no gift more to the 
point, but it gave Andrew a little chill of distaste, this 
reminder of the life that lay ahead of him. And in spite 
of himself he could not break the silence that began to 
settle over the cabin again. Finally Hank announced 
that it was bedtime for him, and, preparing himself by 
the simple expedient of kicking off his boots and then 
drawing off his trousers, he slipped into his blankets, 
twisted them tightly around his broad shoulders with a 
single turn of his body, and was instantly snoring. An¬ 
drew followed that example more slowly. 

Not since he left Martindale, however, had he slept 
soundly. Take a tame dog into the wilderness and he 
learns to sleep like a wolf quickly enough; and Andrew, 
with mind and nerve constantly set for action like a 
cocked revolver, had learned to sleep like a wild thing in 
turn. And accordingly, when he wakened in the mid¬ 
dle of the night, he was alert on the instant. He had a 
singular feeling that some one had been looking at him 
while he slept. 


CHAPTER XXI 


HANK DROPS HIS CARDS 

F irst of all, naturally, he looked at the door. It was 
now a bright rectangle filled with moonlight and 
quite empty. There might, of course, be something or 
some one just outside the door. It might even be that 
a wild animal had looked in. But Andrew knew that the 
mere falling of an eye upon him would not waken him. 
There must have been a sound, and he glanced over to 
the trapper for an explanation. But Hank Rainer lay 
twisted closely in his blankets. 

Andrew raised upon one elbow and thought. It trou¬ 
bled him—the insistent feeling of the eyes which had 
been upon him. They had burned their way into his 
dreams with a bright insistence. 

He looked again, and, having formed the habit of 
photographing things with one glance, he compared what 
he saw now with what he had last seen when he fell 
asleep. It tallied in every detail except one. The trou¬ 
sers which had lain on the floor beside Hank’s bed were 
no longer there. 

It was a little thing, of course, but Andrew closed his 
eyes to make sure. Yes, he could even remember the 
gesture with which the trapper had tossed down the 
trousers to the floor. Andrew sat up in bed noiselessly. 
He slipped to the door and flashed one glance up and 
down. Below him the hillside was bright beneath the 
moon. The far side of the ravine was doubly black in 
shadow. 


HANK DROPS HIS CARDS 145 

But nothing lived, nothing moved. And then again 
he felt the eye upon him. He whirled. ‘‘Hank!” he 
called softly. And he saw the slightest start as he spoke. 
“Hank!” he repeated in the same tone, and the trapper 
stretched his arms, yawned heavily, and turned. “Well, 
lad?” he inquired. 

But Andrew knew that he had been heard the first time, 
and he felt that this pretended slow awakening was too 
elaborate to be true. He went back to his own bed and 
began to dress rapidly. In a moment he was equipped. 
In the meantime the trapper was staring stupidly at him 
and asking what was wrong. 

“Something mighty queer,” said Andrew. “Must have 
been a coyote in here that sneaked off with your trousers, 
unless you have ’em on.” 

Just a touch of pause, then the other replied through 
a yawn: “Sure, I got ’em on. Had to get up in the 
night, and I was too plumb sleepy to take ’em off again 
when I come back.” 

“Ah,” said Andrew, “I see.” 

He stepped to the door into the horse shed and paused; 
there was no sound. He opened the door and stepped 
in quickly. Both horses were on the ground, asleep, but 
he took the gelding by the nose, to muffle a grunt as he 
rose, and brought him to his feet. Then, still softly 
and swiftly, he lifted the saddle from its peg and put it 
on its back. One long draw made the cinches taut. He 
fastened the straps, and then went to the little window 
behind the horse, through which had come the vague and 
glimmering light by which he did the saddling. Now 
he scanned the trees on the edge of the clearing with 
painful anxiety. Once he thought that he heard a voice, 
but it was only the moan of one branch against another 
as the wind bent some tree. He stepped back from the 


FREE RANGE FANNING 


146 

window and rubbed his knuckles across his forehead, 
obviously puzzled. It might be that, after all, he was 
wrong. So he turned back once more toward the main 
room of the cabin to make sure. Instead of opening the 
door softly, as a suspicious man will, he cast it open with 
a sudden push of his foot; the hulk of Hank Rainer 
turned at the opposite door, and the big man staggered 
as though he had been struck. 

It might have been caused by his swift right-about 
face, throwing him off his balance, but it was more prob¬ 
ably the shock that came from facing a revolver in the 
hand of Andrew. The gun was at his hip. It had 
come into his hand with a nervous flip of the fingers as 
rapid as the gesture of the card expert. 

'‘Come back,’’ said Andrew. “Talk soft, step soft. 
Now, Hank, what made you do it?’^ 

The red hair of the other was burning faintly in the 
moonlight, and it went out as he stepped from the door 
into the middle of the room, his finger tips brushing the 
ceiling above him. And Andrew, peering through that 
shadow, saw two little, bright eyes, like the eyes of a 
beast, twinkling out at him from the mass of hair. A 
twitch of cold went among the muscles of his back as he 
saw the thing. 

“When you went after the shells for me. Hank,’’ he 
stated, “you gave the word that I was here. Then you 
told the gent that took the message to spread it around 
—to get it to Hal Dozier, if possible—^to have the men 
come back here. You'd gb out, when I was sound asleep, 
and tell them when they could rush me. Is that straight ?" 

There was no answer. 

“Speak out! I feel like shovin' this gun down your 
throat. Hank, but I won't if you speak out and tell me 
the truth." 


HANK DROPS HIS CARDS 


HZ 

Whatever other failings might be his, there was no 
great cowardice in Hank Rainer. His arms remained 
above his head and his little eyes burned. That was all. 

“Well,” said Andrew, “I think you’ve got me, Hank. 
I suppose I ought to send you to death before me, but, to 
tell you the straight of it, I’m not going to, because I’m 
sort of sick. Sick, you understand? Tell me one thing 
—are the boys here yet? Are they scattered around 
the edge of the clearing, or are they on the way? Hank,, 
was it worth five thousand to double cross a gent that’s 
your guest—a fellow that’s busted bread with you, 
bunked in the same room with you? And even when 
they’ve drilled me clean, and you’ve got the reward, don’t 
you know that you’ll be a skunk among real men from 
this time on? Did you figure on that when you sold 
me ?” 

The hands of Hank Rainer fell suddenly, but no lower 
than his beard. The fingers thrust at his throat—he 
seemed to be tearing his own flesh. 

“Pull the trigger, Andy,” he said. ‘'Go on. I ain’t 
fit to live. I don’t want to live. But if I had it to do 
over again!” ' 

“Why did you do it. Hank?” 

“I wanted a new set of traps, Andy; that was what I 
wanted. I’d been figurin’ and schemin’ all autumn how 
to get my traps before the winter come on. My owa 
wasn’t any good. Then I seen that fur coat of yours. 
It set me thinking about what I could do if I had some 
honest-to-goodness traps with springs in ’em that would 
hold—and—I stood it as long as I could.” 

While he spoke, Andrew looked past him, through the 
door. All the world was silver beyond. The snow had 
been falling, and on the first great peak there was a glint 
of the white, very pure and chill against the sky. The 


FREE RANGE FANNING 


148 

very air was keen and sweet. Ah, it was a world to 
live in, and he was not ready to die! 

He looked back to Hank Rainer. "‘Hank, my time 
was sure to come sooner or later, but I’m not ready to 
die. I’m—I’m too young, Hank. Well, good-by!” 

He found gigantic arms spreading before him. 

“Andy,” insisted the big man, “it ain’t too late for me 
to double cross ’em. Let me go out first and you come 
straight behind me. They won’t fire; they’ll think I’ve 
got a new plan for givin’ you up. When we get to the 
circle of ’em, because they’re all round the cabin, we’ll 
drive at ’em together. Come on!” 

“Wait a minute. Is Hal Dozier out there ?” 

“Yes. Oh, go on and curse me, Andy. I’m cursin’ 
myself!” 

“If he’s there it’s no use. But there’s no use two 
dyin’ when I try to get through. Only one thing. Hank ; 
if you want to keep your self-respect don’t take the 
reward money.” 

“I’ll see it burn first, and I’m goin’ with you, Andy 1” 

“You stay where you are; this is my party. Before 
the finish of the dance I’m going to see if some of those 
sneaks out yonder, lyin’ so snug, won’t like to step right 
out and do a caper with me!” 

And before the trapper could make a protest he had 
drawn back into the horse shed. 

There he led the chestnut to the door, and, looking 
through the crack, he scanned the surface of the ground. 
It was sadly broken and chopped with rocks, but the geld¬ 
ing might make headway fast enough. It was a short 
distance to the trees—twenty-five to forty yards, per¬ 
haps. And if he burst out of that shed on the back of 
the horse, spurred to full speed, he might take the watch¬ 
ers, who perhaps expected a signal from the trapper be- 


HANK DROPS HIS CARDS 


149 

fore they acted, quite unawares, and he would be among 
the sheltering shadows of the forest while the posse was 
getting up its guns. 

There was an equally good chance that he would ride 
straight into a nest of the waiting men, and, even if he 
reached the forest, he would be riddled with bullets. 

Now, all these thoughts and all this weighing of the 
chances occupied perhaps half a second, while Andrew 
stood looking through the crack. Then he swung into 
the saddle, leaning far over to the side so that he would 
have clearance under the doorway, kicked open the swing¬ 
ing door, and sent the chestnut leaping into the night. 


CHAPTER XXII 


THE THRESHOLD OF MERCY 

I F only the night had been dark, if the gelding had had 
a fair start; but the moon was bright, and in the thin 
mountain air it made a radiance almost as keen as day 
and just sufficiently treacherous to delude a horse, which 
had been sent unexpectedly out among rocks by a cruel 
pair of spurs. At the end of the first leap the gelding 
stumbled to his knees with a crash and snort among 
the stones. The shock hurled Andrew forward, but he 
clung with spurs and hand, and as he twisted back into 
the saddle the gelding rose valiantly and lurched ahead 
again. 

Yet that double sound might have roused an army, 
and for the keen-eared watchers around the clearing it 
was more than an ample warning. There was a crash 
of musketry so instant and so close together that it was 
like a volley delivered by a line of soldiers at command. 
Bullets sang shrill and small around Andrew, but that 
first discharge had been a burst of snap-shooting, and by 
moonlight it takes a rare man indeed to make an accurate 
snapshot. The first discharge left both Andrew and the 
horse untouched, and for the moment the wild hope of 
unexpected success was raised in his heart. And he had 
noted one all-important fact—the flashes, widely scat¬ 
tered as they were, did not extend across the exact course 
of his flight toward the trees. Therefore, none of the 
posse would have a point-blank shot at him. For those 
in the rear and on the sides the weaving course of the 


THE THRESHOLD OF MERCY 


151 

gelding, running like a deer and swerving agilely among 
the rocks, as if to make up for his first blunder, offered 
the most difficult of all targets. 

All this in only the space of a breath, yet the ground 
was already crossed and the trees were before him when 
Andrew saw a ray of moonlight flash on the long bar¬ 
rel of a rifle to his right, and he knew that one man at 
least was taking a deliberate aim. He had his revolver 
on the fellow in the instant, and yet he held his fire. 
God willing, he would come back to Anne Withero with 
no more stains on his hands I 

And that noble, boyish impulse killed the chestnut, for 
a moment later a stream of fire spouted out, long and 
thin, from the muzzle of the rifle, and the gelding struck 
at the end of a stride, like a ship going down in the sea; 
his limbs seemed to turn to tajlow under him, and he 
crumpled on the ground. 

The fall flung Andrew clean out of the saddle; he 
landed on his knees and leaped for the woods, but now 
there was a steady roar of guns behind him. He was 
struck heavily behind the left shoulder, staggered. 
Something gashed his neck like the edge of a red-hot 
knife, his whole left side was numb. 

And then the merciful dark of the trees closed around 
him. ' 

For fifty yards he raced through an opening in the 
trees, while a yelling like wild Indians rose behind him; 
then he leaped into cover and waited. One thing fa¬ 
vored him still. They had not brought horses, or at 
least they had left their mounts at some distance, for fear 
of the chance noises they might make when the cabin 
was stalked. And now, looking down the lane among 
the trees, he saw men surge into it. 

All his left side was covered with a hot bath, but, bal- 


FREE RANGE FANNING 


i 52 « 

ancing! his revolver in his right hand, he felt a queer 
touch of joy and pride at finding his nerve still unshaken. 
He raised the weapon, covered their bodies, and then 
something like an invisible hand forced down the muz¬ 
zle of his gun. He could not shoot to kill! 

He did what was perhaps better; he fired at that mass 
of legs, and even a child could not have failed to strike 
the target. Once, twice, and again; then the crowd 
melted to either side of the path, and there was a shriek¬ 
ing and forms twisting and writhing on the ground. 

Some one was shouting orders from the side; he was 
ordering them to the right and left to surround the fugi¬ 
tive ; he was calling out that Fanning was hit. At least, 
they would go with caution down his trail after that first 
check. He left his sheltering tree and ran again down 
the ravine. 

By this time the first shock of the wounds and the 
numbness were leaving him, but the pain was terrible. 
It gathered in his shoulder and shot with hot and cold 
fingers up and down his side. Yet he knew that he was 
not fatally injured if he could stop that mortal drain of 
his wounds. 

He heard the pursuit in the distance more and more. 
Every now and then there was a spasmodic outburst of 
shooting, and Andrew grinned in spite of his pain. They 
were closing around the place where they thought he 
was making his last stand, shooting at shadows which 
might be the man they wanted. 

Then he stopped, tore off his shirt, and ripped it with 
his right hand and his teeth into strips. He tied one 
around his neck, knotting it until he could only draw 
his breath with difficulty. Several more strips he tied 
together, and then wound the long bandage around his 
shoulder and pulled. The pain brought him close to a 


THE THRESHOLD OF MERCY 153 

swoon, but when his senses cleared he found that the flow 
from his wounds had eased. 

But not entirely. There was still some of that deadly 
trickling down his side, and, with the chill of the night 
biting into him, he knew that it was life or death to him 
if he could reach some friendly house within the next 
two miles. Some friendly house—in two thousand 
miles, even! There was only one dwelling straight be¬ 
fore him, and that was the house of the owner of the 
bay mare. They would doubtless turn him over to the 
posse instantly. But there was one chance in a hundred 
that they would not break the immemorial rule of moun¬ 
tain hospitality. For Andrew there was no hope except 
that tenuous one. 

The rest of that walk became a nightmare. Such was 
the singing in his ears that he was not sure whether he 
heard the yell of rage and disappointment behind him 
as the posse discovered that the bird had flown or whether 
the sound existed only in his own ringing head. But 
one thing was certain—they would not trail Andrew Ban¬ 
ning recklessly in the night, not even with the moon to 
help them. 

So he plodded steadily on. If it had not been for 
that ceaseless drip he would have taken the long chance 
and broken for the mountains above him, trying through 
many a long day ahead to cure the wounds and in some 
manner sustain his life. But the drain continued. It 
was hardly more than drop by drop, but all the time a 
telltale weakness was growing in his legs, as if he were 
drunk, and making his knees buckle more and more at 
every step. In spite of the agony he was sleepy, and 
he would have liked to drop on the first mat of leaves 
that he found. 

That crazy temptation he brushed away, and went on 


FREE RANGE FANNING 


154 

tantil surely, like a star of hope, he saw the light winking 
feebly through the trees, and then came out on the cabin. 

He remembered afterward that even in his dazed con¬ 
dition he was disappointed because of the neat, crisp, 
appearance of the house. There must be women there, 
and women meant screams, horror, betrayal. 

But there was no other hope for him now. Twice, as 
he crossed the clearing before he reached the door of 
the cabin, his foot struck a rock and he pitched weakly 
forward, with only the crumbling strength of his right 
arm to keep him from striking on his face. Then there 
was a furious clamor and a huge dog rushed at him. 

It was like a picture of a dog rather than a reality to 
Andrew. He heeded it only with a glance from the 
corner of his eye. And then, his dull brain clearing, he 
realized that the dog no longer howled at him or showed 
his teeth, but was walking beside him, licking his hand 
and whining with sympathy. ' 

“Oh, Lord,'’ thought Andrew, “if I could find one 
human being with a heart as kind as that dog’s!” 

He dropped again, and this time he could never have 
regained his feet had not his right arm flopped helplessly 
across the back of the big dog, and the beast cowered 
and growled, but it did not attempt to slide from under 
his weight. 

He managed to get erect again, but when he reached 
the low flight of steps to the front door he was reeling 
drunkenly from side to side. He fumbled for the knob, 
and it turned with a grating sound. 

“Hold on! Keep out!” shrilled a voice inside. “We 
got guns here. Keep out, you dirty bum!” 

The door fell open, and he found himself confronted 
by what seemed to him a dazzling torrent of light and a 


THE THRESHOLD OF MERCY 


155 

host of human faces. He drew himself up beside the 
doorway. 

“Gentlemen,” said Andrew, ‘T am not a bum. I am 
worth five thousand dollars to the man who turns me 
over, dead or alive, to the sheriff. My name is Andrew 
Canning.” 

At that the faces became a terrible rushing and circling 
flare, and the lights went out with equal suddenness. He 
was left in total darkness, falling through space; but, at 
his last moment of consciousness, he felt arms going 
about him, arms through which his bulk kept slipping 
down, and below him was a black abyss. 


CHAPTER XXIII 


UNDER COVER 

I T was a very old man who held, or tried to hold, An¬ 
drew from falling to the floor. He was, in fact, the 
same man who had sat under the awning smoking the 
corncob pipe, some three days before. Now his old 
shoulders shook under the burden of the outlaw, and the 
burden, indeed, would have slumped brutally to the floor, 
had not the small ten-year-old boy, whom Andrew had 
seen on the bay mare, come running in under the arms 
of the old man. With his meager strength he assisted, 
and the two managed to lower the body gently. Andrew 
was struggling to the last, and there was a horror in his 
wide, blank eyes. 

'‘Hold me,” he kept saying. “Don’t let me slip, or 
I'm done for. Hold me, and the girl will come and save 
me. Anne!” 

The boy was frightened. He was white at the sight 
of the wounds, and the freckles stood out in copper 
patches from his pallor. 

Now he clung to the old man. 

“What does he mean, granddad?” he whispered. 
“What girl is cornin’ to save him?” 

“When you get a pile older, Jud,” said granddad, 
“you’ll know what he means. You might even know the 
girl, or a dead ringer for her. I knew her kind once.” 
“Who was she?” 

“Your grandma, you little fool. Now don’t ask ques¬ 
tions.” 


UNDER COVER 


157 


‘^Granddad, it’s the gent that tried to buy Mary!” 

The old man had produced a murderous jackknife 
with a blade that had been ground away to the disap¬ 
pearing point by years of steady grinding. 

‘‘Get some wood in the stove,” he commanded. “Fire 
her up, quick. Put on some water. Easy, lad I” 

The room became a place of turmoil with the clatter 
of the stove lids being raised, the clangor of the kettle 
being filled and put in place. By the time the fire was 
roaring and the boy had turned, he found the bandages 
had been taken from the body of the stranger and his 
grandfather was studying the smeared naked torso with 
a sort of detached, philosophic interest. With the thumb 
and forefinger of his left hand he was pressing deeply 
into the left shoulder of Andrew. 

“Now, there’s an arm for you, Jud,” said the old man. 
“See them long, stringy muscles in the forearm? If you 
grow up and have muscles like them, you can call your¬ 
self a man. And you see the way his stomach caves in? 
Aye, that’s a sign! And the way his ribs sticks out— 
and just feel them muscles on the point of his shoul¬ 
der- Oh, Jud, he would of made a prime wrestler, 

this fine bird of ours!” 

“It’s like touchin’ somethin’ dead, granddad,” said the 
boy. ‘T don’t dast to do it!” 

“Jud, they’s some times when I just about want to 
give you up! Dead? He ain’t nowheres near dead. 
Jest bled a bit, that’s all. Two as pretty little wounds 
as was ever drilled clean by a powerful rifle at short 
range. Dead ? Why, inside two weeks he’ll be fit as a 
fiddle, and inside a month he’ll be his own self! Dead! 
Jud, you make me tired! Gimme that water.” 

He went to work busily. Out of a sort of first-aid 



FREE RANGE FANNING 


158 

chest he took homemade bandages and, after cleansing 
the wounds, he began to dress them carefully. 

He talked with every movement. 

“So this here is the lion, is it?’' nodded granddad. 
“This here is the ravenin’, tearin’, screechin’ man-eater ? 
Why, he looks mostly plain kid to me.” 

“He—^he’s been shot, ain’t he, granddad?” asked the 
child in a whisper. 

“Well, boy, I’d say that the lion had been chawed up 
considerable—^by dogs.” 

He pointed. “See them holes ? The big one in front ? 
That means they sneaked up behind him and shot him 
while his back was turned.” 

He sighed. 

“I’ve heard fine things and brave things about Hal 
Dozier, but mostly I begin to misdoubt ’em all! These 
ain’t the days for a man-sized man to go cavortin’ around. 
When he goes out to take a little exercise, they get a 
hundred of ’em together and put him in a cage and say 
he’s broke the law. Oh, Jud, these ain’t no days for 
a man to be livin’ in.” 

“He’s wakin’ up, granddad,” said Jud, more fright¬ 
ened than before. 

The eyes of Andrew were indeed opening. 

He smiled up at them. “Uncle Jas,” he said, “I don’t 
like to fight. It makes me sick inside, to fight.” He 
closed his eyes again. ’ 

“Now, now, now!” murmured Pop. “This boy has 
a way with him. And he killed Bill Dozier, did he? 
Son, gimme the whisky.” 

He poured a little down the throat of the wounded 
man, and Andrew frowned and opened his eyes again. 
He was conscious at last 


UNDER COVER 


159 

think Fve seen you before,” he said calmly. ‘'Are 
you one of the posse ?” 

The old man stiffened a little. A spot of red glowed 
on his withered cheek and went out like a snuffed light. 

“Young feller,” said the old man, “when I go huntin’ 
I go alone. You write that down in red, and don’t for¬ 
get it. I ain’t ever been a member of no posse. Look 
around and see yourself to home.” 

Andrew raised his head a little and made out the neat 
room. It showed, as even his fading senses had per¬ 
ceived when he saw the house first, a touch of almost 
feminine care. The floor was scrubbed to whiteness, 
the pans hanging on the wall flashed under the lamp¬ 
light, the very stove was burnished. 

“I remember,” said Andrew faintly. 

“You did see me before,” said the other, “when you 
rode into Tomo. I seen you and you seen me. We 
changed looks, so to speak. And now you’ve dropped 
in to call on me. I’m goin’ to put you up in the attic. 
Gimme a hand to straighten him up, Jud.” 

With Jud’s help and the last remnant of Andrew’s 
strength they managed to get him to his feet, and then 
he partly climbed, partly was pushed by Jud, and partly 
was dragged by the old man up a ladder to the loft. It 
was quite cool there, very dark, and the air came in 
through two windows. 

“Ain’t very sociable to put a guest in the attic,” said 
Pop, between his panting breaths. “But I’ll be the doc¬ 
tor, and I order quiet and rest. Ain’t apt to have much 
rest downstairs, ’cause a public character like you. Tan¬ 
ning, will have a consid’able pile of callers askin’ after 
you. Terrible jarrin’ to the nerves when folks come in 
and call on a sick man. You lie here and rest easy.” 

He went down the ladder and came back dragging a 


i6o 


FREE RANGE FANNING 


mattress. There, by the light of a lantern, he and Jud 
made Andrew as comfortable as possible. 

‘‘You mean to keep me here?’^ asked the outlaw. 

“Long as you feel like restin’,” answered the old man. 

“You can make about-” 

“Stop that fool talk about what I can make out of you. 
How come it you stayed so close to Tomo? Where was 
you lyin’ low? In the hills?” 

“Not far away.” 

“And they smelled you out?” 

“A man I thought was my friend-” Andrew: 

clicked his teeth shut. 

“You was sold, eh?” 

“I made a mistake.” 

“H’m,” was the other’s comment. “Well, you forget 
about that and go to sleep. I got a few little attentions 
to pay to that posse. It’ll be here r’arin’ before to-mor- 
rer. Sleep tight, partner.” 

He climbed down the ladder and looked around the 
room. Jud, his freckles still looking like spots of mud 
or rust, his eyes popping, stood silent. 

“I’m glad of that,” said the old man, with a sigh. 

“What, granddad?” 

“You’re like a girl, Jud. Takes a sight to make you 
reasonable quiet. But look yonder. Them spots look 
tolerable like red paint, don’t they? Well, we got to get 
’em off.” 

“I’ll heat some more water,” suggested Jud. 

“You do nothing of the kind. You get them two 
butcher knives out of the table drawer and we’ll scrape 
off the wood, because you can’t wash that stain out’n a 
floor.” He looked suddenly at Jud with a glint in his 
eyes. “I know, because I’ve tried it.” 

For several minutes they scraped hard at the floor 



UNDER COVER 


i6i 


until the last vestige of the fresh stains was gone. Then 
, the old man went outside and, coming back with a hand¬ 
ful of sand, rubbed it in carefully over the scraped places. 
When this was swept away the floor presented no sus¬ 
picious traces. 

I ‘‘But,” he exclaimed suddenly, “I forgot. I plumb 
forgot. He’s been leakin’ all the way here, and when 
I the sun comes up they’ll foiler him that easy by the sign, 
ljud, we’re beat!” 

; They dropped, as at a signal, into two opposite chairs, 
and sat staring gloomily at each other. The old man 
looked simply sad and weary, but the color came and 
went in the face of Jud. And then, like a light, an idea 
dawned in the face of the child. He got up from his 
chair, lighted a lantern, and went outside. His grand¬ 
father observed this without comment or suggestion, but, 
when Jud was gone, he observed to himself: “Jud takes 
after me. He’s got thoughts. And them was things 
his ma and pa was never bothered with.’^ 


CHAPTER XXIV 
jud"s sacrifice 

T he thought of Jud now took him up the back trail 
of Andrew Panning. He leaned far over with the 
lantern, studying with intense interest every place where 
the wounds of the injured man might have left telltale 
stains on the rocks or the grass. When he had appar¬ 
ently satisfied himself of this, he turned and ran at full 
speed back to the house and went up the ladder to An¬ 
drew;. There he took the boots—they were terribly 
stained, he saw—and drew them on. 

* The loose boots and the unaccustomed weights tangled 
his feet sadly, as he went on down the ladder, but he said 
not a word to his grandfather, who was far too dignified ' 
to make a comment on the borrowed footgear. 

Again outside with his lantern, the boy took out his 
pocketknife and felt the small blade. It was of a razor 
keenness. Then he went through the yard behind the 
house to the big henhouse, where the chickens sat perched 
in dense rows. He raised his lantern; at once scores of 
tiny, bright eyes flashed back at him. It was an uncanny 
thing to see. 

But Jud, with a twisted face of determination, kept ' 
on with his survey until he saw the red comb and the 
arched tail plumes of a large Plymouth Rock rooster. 

It was a familiar sight to Jud. Of all the chickens on : 
the place this was his peculiar property. He had helped ' 
the weakling out of the shell. He had fed him through J 
all the fluffy and gaunt stages of a rooster's growth. | 


JUD’S SACRIFICE 163 

He had watched with enormous pride the appearance of 
the big spurs. He had accompanied with a beating heart 
the progress of the rooster, as he fought his way against 
the older and wiser birds, until at length, by sheer strength 
of leg and length of spur, the Plymouth Rock was the 
undisputed cock of the walk. And now Jud had deter¬ 
mined to sacrificle this dearest of pets. The bay mare 
herself was hardly possessed of a larger share of his 
heart. 

The old rooster was so accustomed to his master, in¬ 
deed, that he allowed himself to be taken from the perch 
without a single squawk, and there was no sound except 
the rushing of his wings as he regained his balance on 
the wrist of Jud. The boy took his captive beyond the 
pen. Once, when the big rooster canted his head and 
looked into his face with his courageous red eyes, the 
boy had to wink away the tears; but he thought of the 
man so near death in the attic, he felt the clumsy boots 
on his feet, and his heart grew strong again. 

He went around to the front of the house and by the 
steps he fastened on the long neck of his prisoner a grasp 
strong enough to keep him silent for a moment. Then 
he cut the rooster's breast deeply, shuddering as he felt 
the knife take hold. 

Something trickled warmly over his hands. Drop¬ 
ping his knife in his pocket, Jud started, walked with 
steps as long as he could make them. He went, with 
the spurs chinking to keep time for each stride, straight 
toward a cliff some hundreds of yards from the house. 
The blood ran freely. The old rooster, feeling himself 
sicken, sank weakly against the breast of the boy, and 
Jud thought that his heart would break. He reached 
the sharp edge of the cliff and heard the rush of the lit¬ 
tle river far below him. At the same time his captive 


i64 free range FANNING 

gave one final flutter of the wings, one feeble crow, and 
was dead. 

Jud waited until the tears had cleared from his eyes. 
Then he took off the boots, and, in bare feet that would 
leave no trace on the rocks, he skirted swiftly back to 
the house, put the dead body back in the chicken yard, 
and returned to his grandfather. 

There was one great satisfaction for him that evening, 
one reward for the great sacrifice, and it came imme¬ 
diately. He saw his grandfather, who scorned shows of 
emotion, come from his chair with a groan. ‘‘Suffering 
saints, boy, have you been playin' dead outlaw? Suffer¬ 
ing saints, Jud, ain’t you got no sense?” 

While the old man stood trembling before him, Jud 
told his story. 

It was a rich feast indeed to see the relief, the aston¬ 
ishment, the pride come in swift turns upon that grim 
old face. 

And yet in the end Pop was able to muster a fairly 
good imitation of a frown. 

“And here you come back with a shirt and a pair of 
trousers plumb spoiled by all your gallivantin',” he said, 
“not speakin’ of a perfectly good chicken killed. Ain't 
you never goin' to get grown up, Jud?'' 

“He was mine, the chicken I killed,'' said Jud, choking. 

It brought a pause upon, the talk. The other was 
forced to wink both eyes at once and sigh. 

“The big speckled feller?'' he asked more gently. 

“The Plymouth Rock,” said Jud fiercely. “He wasn’t 
no speckled feller! He was the finest rooster and the 
gamest-” 

“Have it your own way,” said the old man. “You 
got your grandma’s tongue when it comes to arguin' 
fine points. Now go and skin out of them clothes and 



JUD’S "^SACRIFICE 165 

come back and see that you’ve got all that—^that stuff 
off’n your face and hands.” 

Jud obeyed, and presently reappeared in a ragged outfit, 
his face and hands red from scrubbing. 

“I guess maybe it’s all right,” declared the old man. 
‘‘Only, they’s risks in it. Know what’s apt to happen 
if they was to find that you’d helped to get a outlaw off 
free ?” 

“What would it be?” asked the boy. 

“Oh, nothin’ much. Maybe they’d try you and maybe 
they wouldn’t. Anyways, they’d sure wind up by hangin’ 
you by the neck till you was as dead as the speckled 
rooster.” 

“The Plymouth Rock,” insisted Jud hotly. 

“All right, I don’t argue none. But you just done a 
dangerous thing, Jud. And there’ll be a consid’able pile 
of men here in the mornin’, most like, to ask you how 
and why.” 

He was astonished to hear Jud break into a careless 
gale of laughter. 

“Hush up,” said Pop. “You’ll be wakin’ him up with 
all that noise. Besides, what d’you mean by laughin’ at 
the law?” 

“Why, granddad,” said Jud, “don’t I know you 
wouldn’t never let no posse take me from you? Don’t 
I know maybe you’d clean ’em all up?” 

“Pshaw!” said Pop, and flushed with delight. “You 
was always a fool kid, Jud. Now you run along to bed. 

It was a gloomy hour, always, with Jud, and now he 
regarded his grandfather with a wistful eye. 

“Maybe,” he suggested in the face of the other’s 
frown, “I’d better stay up—in case the posse should 
come to-night ?” 


i66 FREE RANGE FANNING 

The hint of a smile twitched at the corners of the man’s 
wide mouth. 

^Tull up a chair beside the stove, son,” he said. ‘‘Next 
thing I know, you’ll be sittin’ up smokin’ and swappin’ 
lies with me, eh?” 

“Oh,” said Jud cheerily, “maybe it won’t be so long.” 

He drew up his chair according to instructions and sat 
very stiff and silent, fearful that this new liberty would 
be soon curtailed. Presently a long, bony arm went out 
and rested around his shoulders. 

“I been thinkin’,” observed his grandfather, and Jud 
was as still as a mouse. “I been thinkin’,” went on the 
old man, “and I got an idea maybe you’d like to hear. 
They’s a place in Tomo where they sell chickens and 
roosters and such. And the last time I was in town I 
seen some of these speckled chickens. I’ll get you one 
when I go in next time, eh ?” 

“Oh, granddad,” said the boy, hurt, “I don’t never 
want to see one of ’em again.” 

“I thought you liked ’em, Jud?” 

“It wasn’t the color. But him and me was pals.” 

“Pshaw,” said the man. “Jud, you go for your bed 
now. Good night.” ' 

Jud went obediently to the corner of the room to his 
bunk, and his grandfather rose and stood before the 
open door. The moonlight was softening all the ragged 
outlines of the hills, as with a great mercy. 


CHAPTER XXV; 

A MAN OF DOUBTS 

I N Hal Dozier there was a belief that the end justified 
the means. When Hank Rainer sent word to Tomo 
that the outlaw was in his cabin, and, if the posse would 
gather, he. Hank, would come out of his cabin that night 
and let the posse rush the sleeping man who remained, 
Hal Dozier was willing and eager to take advantage of 
the opportunity. A man of action by nature and incli¬ 
nation, Dozier had built a great repute as a hunter of 
criminals, and he had been known to take single-handed 
chances against the most desperate; but when it was pos¬ 
sible Hal Dozier played a safe game. 

He understood the Napoleonic maxim that the side 
which puts the greatest number of units at the point of 
contact will be practically sure to win, and, when he 
could use two men to do the work of one man, Hal did it. 
And if he could get twenty, so much the better. In a 
crisis he was willing and able to do his work alone, but, 
by the time he had accumulated half a dozen scars repre¬ 
senting half a dozen battles in his early life, he reached 
the conclusion that sooner or later one of his enemies 
was bound to kill him. The law of chance of itself con¬ 
demned him. And though the people of the mountain 
desert considered him invincible, because he had run 
down some dozen notorious fighters, Hal himself felt 
that this simply increased the chances that the thirteenth 
man, by luck or by cunning, would strike him down. 
Therefore he played safe always. On this occasion 


i68 


FREE RANGE FANNING 


he made surety doubly sure. He could have taken two 
or three known men, and they would have been ample 
to do the work. Instead, he picked out half a dozen. 
For just as Henry Allister had recognized that inde¬ 
scribable element of danger in the new outlaw, so the 
man hunter himself had felt it. On the one hand, he 
knew the fighting qualities of the Fanning blood. On 
the other hand, he had seen Andrew Fanning face to 
face and had watched both his eye and his hand. Dur¬ 
ing that interview in the room of Hal Dozier, if there 
had been one instant during which both eye and hand 
had wavered, Andrew would have been a dead man; but, 
though the eye might change, the hand was never re¬ 
laxed. Thinking of these things, Hal Dozier determined 
that he would not tempt Providence. He had his com¬ 
mission as a deputy marshal, and as such he swore in his 
men and started for the cabin of Hank Rainer. 

When the news had spread, others came to join him, 
and he could not refuse. Before the cavalcade entered 
the mouth of the canon he had some thirty men about 
him. They were all good men, but in a fight, particu¬ 
larly a fight at night, Hal Dozier knew that numbers to 
excess are apt to simply clog the working parts of the 
machine. All that he feared came to pass. There was 
one breathless moment of joy when the horse of Andrew 
was shot down and the fugitive himself staggered under 
the fire of the posse. At that moment Hal had poised 
his rifle for a shot that would end this long trail, but at 
that moment a yelling member of his own group had 
come between him and his target, and the chance was 
gone. When he leaped to one side to make the shot, 
Andrew was already among the trees. 

Afterward he had sent his men in a circle to close in 
on the spot from which the outlaw made his stand, but 


A MAN OF DOUBTS 


169 

they had closed on empty shadows—^the fugitive had 
escaped, leaving a trail of blood. However, it was hardly 
safe to take that trail in the night, and practically impos¬ 
sible until the sunlight came to follow the sign. So Hal 
Dozier had the three wounded men taken back to the 
cabin of Hank Rainer. 

The stove was piled with wood until the top was white 
hot, and then the posse sat about on the floor, crowding 
the room and waiting for the dawn. The three wounded 
men were made as comfortable as possible. One had 
been shot through the hip, a terrible wound that would 
probably stiffen his leg for life; another had gone down 
with a wound along the shin bone which kept him in a 
constant torture. The third man was hit cleanly through 
the thigh, and, though he had bled profusely for some 
time, he was now only weak, and in a few weeks he 
would be perfectly sound again. The hard breathing 
of the three was the only sound in that dim room during 
the rest of the night. The story of Hank Rainer had 
been told in half a dozen words. Fanning had suspected 
him, stuck him up at the point of a gun, and then—re¬ 
fused to kill him, in spite of the fact that he knew he 
was betrayed. After his explanation Hank withdrew to 
the darkest comer of the room and was silent. From 
time to time looks went toward that corner, and one 
thought was in every mind. This fellow, who had offered 
to take money for a guest, was damned for life and 
branded. Thereafter no one would trust him, no one 
would change words with him; he was an outcast, a 
social leper. And Hank Rainer knew it as well as any 
man. 

A cloud of tobacco smoke became dense in the room, 
and a halo surrounded the lantern on the wall. Then 
one by one men got up and muttered something about 


FREE RANGE FANNING 


170 

being done with the party, or having to be at work in 
the morning, and stamped out of the room and went 
down the ravine to the place where the horses had been 
tethered. The first thrill of excitement was gone. 
Moreover, it was no particular pleasure to close in on a 
wounded man who lay somewhere among the rocks, 
without a horse to carry him far, and too badly wounded 
to shift his position. Yet he could lie in his shelter, 
whatever clump of bowlders he chose, and would make 
it hot for the men who tried to rout him out. The 
heavy breathing of the three wounded men gave point 
to these thoughts, and the men of family and the men 
of little heart got up and left the posse. 

The sheriff made no attempt to keep them. He re¬ 
tained his first hand-picked group. In the gray of the 
morning he rallied these men again. They went first 
to the dead, stiff body of the chestnut gelding and stripped 
it of the saddle and the pack of Tanning. This, by silent 
consent, was to be the reward of the trapper. This was 
his in lieu of the money which he would have earned if 
they had killed Tanning on the spot. Hal Dozier stiffly 
invited Hank to join them in the man hunt; he was met 
by a solemn silence, and the request was not repeated. 
Dozier had done a disagreeable duty, and the whole 
posse was glad to be free of the traitor. In the mean¬ 
time the morning was brightening rapidly, and Dozier 
led out his men. 

They went to their horses, and, coming back to the 
place where Andrew had made his halt and fired his 
three shots, they took up the trail. 

It was as easy to read as a book. The sign was never 
wanting for more than three steps at a time, and Hal 
Dozier, reading skillfully, watched the decreasing dis¬ 
tance between heel indentations, a sure sim that the 


A MAN OF DOUBTS 171 

fugitive was growing weak from the loss of the blood 
that spotted the trail. Straight on to the doorstep of 
Pop’s cabin went the trail. Dozier rapped at the door, 
and the old man himself appeared. The bony fingers 
of one hand were wrapped around the corncob, which 
was his inseparable companion, and in the other he held 
the cloth with which he had been drying dishes. Jud, 
standing on a box to bring him above the level of the 
sink, turned from his pan of dishwater to cast a fright¬ 
ened glance over his shoulder. Pop did not 'wait for 
explanations. 

“Come in, Dozier,” he invited. “Come in, boys. 
Glad to see you. I know what you’re after, and it’s 
pretty good to see you here. Ain’t particular comfortable 
for an oldster like me when they’s a full-grown, man- 
eatin’ outlaw lyin’ about the grounds. This Panning 
come to my door last night. Me and Jud was sittin’ by 
the stove. He wanted to get us to bandage him up, 
but I yanked my gun off’n the wall and ordered him 
away.” 

“You got your gun on Panning—off the wall—be¬ 
fore he had you covered?” asked Hal Dozier with a 
singular smile. 

“Oh, I ain’t so slow with my hands,” declared Pop. 
“I ain’t half so old as I look, son! Besides, he was 
bleedin’ to death and crazy in the head. I don’t figure 
he even thought about his gun just then.” 

“Why didn’t you shoot him down. Pop? Or take 
him? There’s money in him.” 

“Don’t I know it? Ain’t I seen the posters? But 
I wasn’t for pressin’ things too hard. Not me at my age, 
with Jud along, I ordered him away and let him go. 
He went down yonder. Oh, you won’t have far to go. 
He was about all in when he left. But I ain’t been out 


172 FREE RANGE FANNING 

lookin’ around yet this morning. I know the feel of 3 
forty-five slug in your inwards.’’ 

He placed a hand upon his stomach, and a growl of 
amusement went through the posse. After all, Pop was 
a known man. In the meantime some one had picked up 
the trail to the cliff, and Dozier followed it. They went 
along the heel marks to a place where blood had spurted 
liberally over the ground. ‘^Must have had a hemor¬ 
rhage here,” said Dozier. “No, we won’t have far to 
go. Poor devil!” 

And then they came to the edge of the cliff, where 
the heel marks ended. “He walked straight over,” said 
one of the men. “Think o’ that!” 

“No,” exclaimed Dozier, who was on his knees exam¬ 
ining the marks, “he stood here a minute or so. First he 
shifted to one foot, and then he shifted his weight to 
the other. And his boots were turning in. Queer. I 
suppose his knees were buckling. He saw he was due 
to bleed to death and he took a shorter way! Plain 
suicide. Look down, boys! See anything?” 

There was a jumble of sharp rocks at the base of the 
cliff, and the water of the stream very close. Nothing 
showed on the rocks, nothing showed on the face of the 
cliff. They found a place a short distance to the right 
and lowered a man down with the aid of a rope. He 
looked about among the rocks. Then he ran down the 
stream for some distance. He came back with a glum 
face. 

There was no sign of the body of Andrew Fanning 
among the rocks. Looking up to the top of the cliff, 
from the place where he stood, he figured that a man 
could have jumped clear of the rocks by a powerful leap 
and might have struck in the swift current of the stream. 
There was no trace of the body in the waters, no drop 


A MAN OF DOUBTS 173 

of blood on the rocks. But then the water ran here at 
a terrific rate; the scout had watched a heavy bowlder 
moved while he stood there. He went down the bank 
and came at once to a deep pool, over which the water 
w^as swirling. He sounded that pool with a long branch 
and found no bottom. 

‘‘And that makes it clear,” he said, “that the body 
went down the water, came to that pool, was sucked 
down, and got lodged in the rocks. Anybody differ? 
No, gents, Andrew Banning is food for the trout. And 
I say it’s the best way out of the job for all of us.” 

But Hal Dozier was a man full of doubts. “There’s 
only one other thing possible,” he said. “He might have 
turned aside at the house of Pop. He may be there 
now.” 

“But don’t the trail come here? And is there any 
back trail to the house?” one of the men protested. 

“It doesn’t look possible,” nodded Hal Dozier, “but 
queer things are apt to happen. Let’s go back and have 
a look.” 


CHAPTER XXVI 

BY A SPIDER THREAD 

H e dismounted and gave his horse to one of the oth¬ 
ers, telling them that he would do the scouting 
himself this time, and he went back on foot to the house 
of Pop. He made his steps noiseless as he came closer, 
not that he expected to surprise Pop to any purpose, but 
the natural instinct of the trailer made him advance with 
caution, and, when he was close enough to the door he 
heard: ‘‘Oh, he’s a clever gent, well enough, but they 
ain’t any of ’em so clever that they can’t learn some¬ 
thin’ new.” Hal Dozier paused with his hand raised to 
rap at the door and he heard Pop say in continuation: 
“You write this down in red, sonny, and don’t you never 
forget it: The wisest gent is the gent that don’t take 
nothin’ for granted.” 

It came to Hal Dozier that, if he delayed his entrance 
for another moment, he might hear something distinctly 
to his advantage; but his role of eavesdropper did not 
fit with his broad shoulders, and, after knocking on the 
door, he stepped in. Pop was putting away the dishes, 
and Jud was scrubbing out the sink. 

“The boys are working up the trail,” said Hal Dozier, 
“but they can do it by themselves. I know that the trail 
ends at the clifiF. I’ll tell you that poor kid walked to 
the edge of the cliff, stopped there a minute, made up his 
mind that he was bleeding to death, and then cut it short. 
He jumped, missed the rocks underneath, and was car- 


BY A SPIDER THREAD 175 

ried off by the river.” Dozier followed up his state¬ 
ment with some curse words. 

He watched the face of the other keenly, but the old 
man was busy filling his pipe. His eyebrows, to be 
sure, flicked up as he heard this tragedy announced, and 
there was a breath from Jud. ‘T’ll tell you, Dozier,” 
said the other, lighting his pipe and then tamping the red- 
hot coals with his calloused forefinger, ‘T’m kind of par¬ 
ticular about the way people cusses around Jud. He’s 
kind of young, and they ain’t any kind of use of him 
litterin’ up his mind with useless words. Don’t mean 
no offense to you, Dozier.” 

The deputy officer took a chair and tipped it back 
against the wall. He felt that he had been thoroughly 
checkmated in his first move; and yet he sensed an atmos¬ 
phere of suspicion in this little house. It lingered in 
the air. No doubt it was all created by the words he 
had overheard before he entered. Also, he noted that 
Jud was watching him with rather wide eyes and a face 
of unhealthy pallor; but that might very well be because 
of the awe which the youngster felt in beholding Hal 
Dozier, the man hunter, at close range. All these things 
were decidedly small clews, but the marshal was accus¬ 
tomed to acting on hints. 

In the meantime. Pop, having put away the last of the 
dishes in a cupboard, whose shelves were lined with 
fresh white paper, offered Dozier a cup of coffee. While 
he sipped it, the marshal complimented his host on the 
precision with which he maintained his house. 

“It looks like a woman’s hand had been at work,” 
concluded the marshal. 

“Something better’n that,” declared the other. “A 
man’s hand, Dozier. People has an idea that because 
women mostly do housework men are out of place in a 


176 FREE RANGE FANNING 

kitchen. It ain’t so. Men just got somethin* more 
important on their hands most of the time.” His eyes 
glanced sadly toward his gun rack. “Women is a p 41 e 
overpraised, Dozier. The point is, they chatter a con- 
sid’able lot about how hard they work, and they all got 
a favorite way of making jelly or bakin’ bread or sewin’ 
calico. But I ask you, man to man, did you ever see a 
cleaner flooi^than that in a woman’s kitchen?” 

The marshal admitted that he never had. “But you’re 
a rare man,” he said. 

Pop shook his head. “When I was a boy like you,” 
he said, “I wasn’t nothin’ to be passed up too quick. But 
a man’s young only once, and that’s a short time—and 
he’s old for years and years and years, Dozier.” He 
added, for fear that he might have depressed his guest. 
“But me and Jud team it, you see. I’m extra old and 
Jud’s extra young—so we kind of hit an average.” 

He touched the shoulder of the boy and there was 
a flash of eyes between them, the flicker of a smile. 
Hal Dozier drew a breath. “I got no kids of my own,” 
he declared. “You’re lucky, friend. And you’re lucky 
to have this neat little house.” 

“No, I ain’t. They’s no luck to it, because I made 
every sliver of it with my own hands.” 

An idea came to the deputy marshal. 

“There’s a place up in the hills behind my house, a 
day’s ride,” he said, “where I go hunting now and then, 
and I’ve an idea a little house like this would be just the 
thing for me. Mind if I look it over?” 

Pop tamped his pipe. 

“Sure thing,” he said. “Look as much as you like.” 

He stepped to a corner of the room and by a ring he 
raised a trapdoor. “I got a cellar ’n’ everything. Take 
a look at it below.” 


BY A SPIDER THREAD 


177 

He lighted the lantern, and Hal Dozier went down 
the steep steps, humming. “Look at the way that foun¬ 
dation’s put in,” said the old man in a loud voice. “I 
done all that, too, with my own hands.” 

His voice was so unnecessarily loud, indeed, just as 
if the deputy were already under ground, that it occurred 
to Dozier that if a man were lying in that cellar he 
would be amply warned. And going down he walked 
with the lantern held to one side, to keep the light off 
his own body as much as possible; his hand kept at his 
hip. 

But, when he reached the cellar, he found only some 
boxes and canned provisions in a rack at one side, and 
a various litter all kept in close order. Big stones had 
been chiseled roughly into shape to build the walls, and 
the flooring was as dry as the floor of the house. It 
was, on the whole, a very solid bit of work. A good 
place to imprison a man, for instance. At this thought 
Dozier glanced up sharply and saw the other holding 
the trapdoor ajar. Something about that implacable, 
bony face made Dozier turn and hurry back up the stairs 
to the main floor of the house. 

“Nice bit of work down there,” he said. “I can use 
that idea very well. Well,” he added carelessly, “I won¬ 
der when my fool posse will get through hunting for 
the remains of poor Banning? Come to think of it”— 
for it occurred to him that if the old man were indeed 
concealing the outlaw he might not know the price which 
was on his head—“there’s a pretty little bit of coin con¬ 
nected with Banning. Too bad you didn’t drop him 
when he came to your door.” 

“Drop a helpless man—for money?” asked the old 
man. “Never, Dozier!” 

“He hadn’t long to live, anyway,” answered the mar- 


178 FREE RANGE FANNING 

shal in some confusion. Those old, straight eyes of Pop 
troubled him. 

He fenced with a new stroke for a confession. 

‘^For my part, Fve never had much heart in this work 
of mine.’’ 

‘‘He killed your brother, didn’t he?” asked Pop with 
considerable dryness. 

“Bill made the wrong move,” replied Hal instantly. 
“He never should have ridden Fanning down in the first 
place. Should have let the fool kid go until he found 
out that Buck Heath wasn’t killed. Then he would 
have come back of his own accord.” 

“That’s a good idea,” remarked the other, “but sort 
of late, it strikes me. Did you tell that to the sheriff?” 

“Fate it is,” remarked Dozier, not following the ques¬ 
tion. “Now the poor kid is outlawed. Well, between 
you and me, I wish he’d gotten away clean-handed. As 
I said before, my heart isn’t in this trail. But too late 
now.” 

“Who had him outlawed? Who put it up to the 
governor?” asked Pop shrewdly. 

And Hal Dozier had to turn his head and cough, for 
he found his stroke parried and the point placed at his 
own breast. 

“By the way,” he went on, “I’d like to take a squint at 
your attic, too. That ladder goes up to it, I guess.” 

“Go ahead,” said Pop. And once more he tamped his 
pipe. 

There was a sharp, shrill cry from the boy, and Dozier 
whirled on him. He saw a pale, scared face, with the 
freckles standing out more rusty than ever, and the eyes 
painfully wide. 

“What’s the matter?” he asked sharply. “What’s the 


BY A SPIDER THREAD 179 

matter with you, Jud?” And he fastened his keen glance 
on the boy. 

Vaguely, from the corner of his eye, he felt that Pop 
had taken the pipe from his mouth. There was a sort of 
breathless touch in the air of the room. 

^‘NothinV’ said Jud. ‘‘Only—^you know the rungs of 
that ladder ain’t fit to be walked on, grandad!” 

“Jud,” said the old man with a strained tone, “It ain’t 
my business to give warnin’s to an officer of the law— 
not mine. He’ll find out little things like that for him¬ 
self.” 

For one moment Dozier remained looking from one 
face to the other. He would have given a great deal if 
he could have made the child meet his glance at that mo¬ 
ment, but the boy was looking steadily at his grandfather. 
Then he shrugged his shoulders and went slowly up the 
ladder. It squeaked under his weight, he felt the rungs 
bow and tremble. Halfway up he turned suddenly, but 
Pop was sitting as old men will, humming a tune and 
keeping time to it by patting the bowl of his pipe with a 
forefinger. 

And Dozier made up his mind. 

He turned and came down the ladder. “I guess 
there’s no use looking in the attic,” he said. “Same as 
any other attic, I suppose. Pop ?” 

“The same?” asked Pop, taking the pipe from his 
mouth. “I should tell a man it ain’t. It’s my work, that 
attic is, and it’s different. But seein’ it’s you, Dozier, 
I’ll let you copy it. Better go up and see how it’s done. 
I handled the joinin’ of them joists pretty slick, but you 
better go and see for yourself.” 

And he smiled at the deputy from under his bushy 
brows. Hal Dozier grinned broadly back at him. 

“I’ve seen your work in the cellar. Pop,” he said. 


i8o FREE RANGE FANNING 

‘‘But nothin’ to compare to the work you’d see in the 
attic. That’ll give you somethin’ worth talkin’ about. 
Ain’t you goin’ to go up ?” 

‘T don’t want to risk my neck on that ladder, for one 
thing. No, I’ll have to let it go. Besides, I’ll have to 
round up the boys.” 

He waved farewell, stepped through the door, and 
closed it behind him. 

“Grandad,” exclaimed Jud in a gasp. 

The old man silenced him with a raised finger and a 
sudden frown. He slipped to the door in turn with a 
step so noiseless that even Jud wondered. Years seemed 
to have fallen from the shoulders of his grandfather. 
He opened the door quickly, and there stood the deputy. 
His back, to be sure, was turned to the door, but he hadn’t 
moved. 

“Think I see your gang over yonder,” said Pop. 
“They seem to be sort of waitin’ for you, Dozier.” 

The other turned and twisted one glance up at the old 
man. 

“Thanks,” he said shortly and strode away. 

Pop closed the door and sank into a chair. He seemed 
suddenly to have aged again. 

“Oh, grandad,” said Jud, “how’d you guess he was 
there all the time ?” 

“I dunno,” said Pop. “Don’t bother me.” 

“But why’d you beg him to look into the attic? 
Didn’t you know he’d see him right off?” 

“Because he goes by contraries, Jud. He wouldn’t of 
started for the ladder at all, if you hadn’t told him he’d 
probably break his neck on it. Only when he seen I 
didn’t care, he made up his mind he didn’t want to see 
that attic.” 

“And if he’d gone up?” whispered Jud. 


BY A SPIDER THREAD 


i8i 


^^Don’t ask me what would of happened,” said Pop. 

All his bony frame was shaken by a shiver. 

‘Ts he such a fine fighter?” asked Jud. 

“Fighter?” echoed Pop. “Oh, lad, he’s the greatest 
hand with a gun that ever shoved foot into stirrup. He 
—he was like a bulldog on a trail—and all I had for a 
rope to hold him was just a little spider thread of think¬ 
ing. Gimme some coffee, Jud. I’ve done a day’s work.” 


CHAPTER XXVII 


THE WOOING OF SALLY 

T he bullets of the posse had neither torn a tendon 
nor broken a bone. Striking at close range and 
driven by high-power rifles, the slugs had whipped cleanly 
through the flesh of Andrew Tanning, and the flesh 
closed again, almost as swiftly as ice freezes firm behind 
the wire that cuts it. In a very few days he could sit 
up, and finally came down the ladder with a rather tot¬ 
tering step. Pop beneath him and Jud steadying his 
shoulders from above. That was a gala day in the house. 
Indeed, they had lived well ever since the coming of 
Andrew, for he had insisted that he bear the household 
expense while he remained there, since they would not 
allow him to depart. 

‘‘And ril let you pay for things, Andrew,” Pop had 
said, “if you won’t say nothing about it, ever, to Jud. 
He’s a proud kid, is Jud, and he’d bust his heart if he 
thought I was lettin’ you spend a cent here.” 

But this day they had a fine steak, brought out from 
Tomo by Pop the evening before, and they had French- 
fried potatoes and store candy and beans with plenty of 
pork and molasses in them, cream biscuits, which Pop 
could make delicious beyond belief, to say nothing of 
canned tomatoes with bits of dried bread in them, and 
coffee as black as night. Such was the celebration when 
Andrew came down to join his hosts, and so high did all 
spirits rise that even Jud, the resolute and the alert, 
forgot his watch. Every day from dawn to dark he 


THE WOOING OF SALLY 


183 

was up to the door or to the rear window, keeping the 
landscape under a sweeping observance every few mo¬ 
ments, lest some chance traveler—all search for Andrew 
Lanning had, of course, ceased with the moment of his 
disappearance—should happen by and see the stranger 
in the household of Pop. But during these festivities 
all else was forgotten, and in the midst of things a de¬ 
cided, rapid knock was heard at the door. 

Speech was cut off at the root by that sound. For 
whoever the stranger might be, he must certainly have 
heard three voices raised in that room. It was Andrew 
who spoke. And he spoke in only a whisper. ‘‘Who¬ 
ever it may be, let him in,” said Andrew, “and, if there’s 
any danger about him, he won’t leave till Pm able to 
leave. Open the door, Jud.” 

And Jud, with a stricken look, crossed the floor with 
trailing feet. The knock was repeated; it had a metallic 
clang, as though the man outside were rapping with the 
butt of a gun in his impatience, and Andrew, setting his 
teeth, laid his hand on the handle of his revolver. Here 
Jud cast open the door, and, standing close to it with her 
forefeet on the top step, was the bay mare. She in¬ 
stantly thrust in her head and snorted in the direction 
of the stranger. 

“Thank Heaven!” said Andrew. “I thought it was 
the guns again!” And Jud, shouting with delight and 
relief, threw his arms around the neck of the horse. “It’s 
Sally!” he said. “Sally, you rascal!” 

“That good-for-nothing boss Sally,” complained the 
old man. “Shoo her away, Jud.” 

But Andrew protested at that, and Jud cast him a 
glance of gratitude. Andrew himself got up from the 
table and went across the room with feeble steps, half 
of an apple in his hand. He sliced it into bits, and she 


FREE RANGE FANNING 


184 

took them daintily from between his fingers. And when 
Jud reluctantly ordered her away she did not blunder 
down the steps, but threw her weight back on her 
haunches and swerved lightly away. It fascinated An¬ 
drew; he had never seen so much of feline control in 
the muscles of a horse. He felt that the animal, if she 
chose, could walk across gravel without making any 
more sound that a mountain lion. When he turned back 
to the table he announced: ‘Top, I’ve got to ride that 
horse. I’ve got to have her. How does she sell ?” 

‘‘She ain’t mine,” said Pop. “You better ask Jud.” 

Jud was at once white and red. In the long hours 
during which he had sat beside the bunk of Andrew in 
the room above, the outlaw had come to fill his mind as 
a perfect specimen of what a man should be. He looked 
at his hero, and then he looked into his mind and saw 
the picture of Sally. A way out occurred to him. “You 
can have her when you can ride her,” he said. “She 
ain’t much use except to look at. But if you can saddle 
her and ride her before you leave—well, you can leave 
on her, Andy.” 

It was the beginning of busy days for Andrew. The 
cold weather was coming on rapidly. Now and then 
they had a flurry of snow, and, though it melted as soon 
as it reached the ground, the higher mountains above 
them were swiftly whitening, while the line of the snow 
was creeping nearer and nearer. The sight of it alarmed 
Andrew, and, with the thought of being snowbound in 
these hills, his blood turned cold. What he yearned for 
were the open spaces of the mountain desert, where he 
could see the enemy approach. But every day in the 
cabin the terror grew that some one would pass, some 
one, unnoticed, would observe the stranger. The whis¬ 
per would reach Tomo—the posse would come again, 


THE WOOING OF SALLY 


185 

and the second time the trap was sure to work. He 
must get away, but no ordinary horse would do for him. 
If he had had a fine animal under him Bill Dozier would 
never have run him down, and he would still be within 
the border of the law. A fine horse—such a horse as 
Sally, say! 

Once he had connected her with his hope of freedom, 
he felt a tremendous urge to back her, and, besides, she 
had fitted into his mind the first moment he saw her, as 
a girl’s face fits into the mind of an impressionable boy 
—^there was Andrew’s idea of a horse. No matter what 
experts may say, men are born with prejudices in horse¬ 
flesh. 

If he had been strong he would have attempted to 
break her at once, but he was not strong. He could 
barely support his own weight during the first couple of 
days after he left the bunk, and he had to use his mind. 
He began, then, at the point where Jud had left off. 

Jud could ride Sally with a scrap of cloth beneath 
him; Andrew started to increase the size of that cloth. 
He did it very gradually. But he was with Sally every 
waking moment. He barely snatched time for his meals. 
Pop encouraged him, not with any hope that he would 
ever be able to ride an unridable horse, but because the 
chilly air of the outdoors rapidly began to whip the color 
back into Andrew’s face and brighten his eye. 

Half a dozen times a day Andrew changed the pad on 
Sally’s back. To keep it in place he made a long strip 
of sacking to serve as a cinch, and before the first day 
was gone she was thoroughly used to it. With this great 
step accomplished, Andrew increased the burden each 
time he changed the pad. He got a big tarpaulin and 
folded it many times; the third day she was accepting 
it calmly and had ceased to turn her head and nose it. 


i86 


FREE RANGE FANNING 


Then he carried up a small sack of flour and put that in 
place upon the tarpaulin. She winced under the dead¬ 
weight burden; there followed a full half hour of frantic 
bucking which would have pitched the best rider in the 
world out of a saddle, but the sack of flour was tied on, 
and Sally could not dislodge it. When she was tired 
of bucking she stood still, and then discovered that the 
sack of flour was not only harmless but that it was good 
to eat. Andrew was barely in time to save the contents 
of the sack from her teeth. 

It was another long step forward in the education of 
Sally. Next he fashioned dumsy imitations of stirrups, 
and there was a long fight between Sally and stirrups, 
but the stirrups, being inanimate, won, and Sally sub¬ 
mitted to the bouncing wooden things at her sides. And 
still, day after day, Andrew built his imitation saddle 
closer and closer to the real thing, until he had taken a 
real pair of cinches off one of Pop’s saddles and had 
taught her to stand the pressure without flinching. 

There was another great return from Andrew’s long 
and steady intimacy with the mare. She came to accept 
him absolutely. She knew his voice; she would come 
to his whistle; and finally, when every vestige of un¬ 
soundness had left his wounds, he climbed into that im¬ 
provised saddle and put his feet in the stirrups. Sally 
winced down in her catlike way and shuddered,. but she 
straightened again, and by the quiver of her muscles the 
rider knew that she was hesitating between bolting and 
standing still. He began to talk to her, and the familiar 
voice decided Sally. She merely turned her head and 
rubbed his knee with her nose. The battle was over and 
won. Ten minutes later Andrew had cinched a real 
saddle in place, and she bore the weight of the leather 
without a stir. The memory of that first saddle and the 


THE WOOING OF SALLY 


187 

biting of the bur beneath it had been gradually wiped 
from her mind, and the new saddle was connected indis¬ 
solubly with the voice and the hand of the man. At the 
end of that day’s work Andrew carried the saddle back 
into the house with a happy heart. 

And the next day he took his first real ride on the back 
of the mare. 

Only a lover of horseflesh can dream what the gait of a 
new mount may mean, the length of stride, the supple¬ 
ness which comes of flexible fetlock joints and hind legs, 
angling well out; and there is the swing of the gallop, 
during which one must watch the shoulders and forelegs, 
and be watchful of the least sign of pounding with the 
front hoofs, since that tells soonest that a horse cannot 
stand a long ride, and, above all, there is the run, with 
the long drives coming from the hind quarters, a succes¬ 
sion of smooth, swift impulses. A man who rides for 
pleasure will note such things as these, but to Andrew 
his horse meant life and death as well as companion¬ 
ship. And he leaned to hear her breathing after he had 
run her; he noted how easily she answered the play of 
his wrist, how little her head moved in and out, so that 
he seldom had to sift the reins through his fingers to 
keep in touch with the bit. It was a plain bar bit, but she 
came about on it as though it had been armed with a 
murderous Spanish curb. He could start her from a 
stand into a full gallop with a touch of his knees, and 
he could bring her to a sliding halt with the least pres¬ 
sure on the reins. He could tell, indeed, that she was 
one of those rare possessions, a horse with a wise mouth. 

And yet he had small occasion to keep up on the bit 
as he rode her. She was no colt which hardly knew its 
own paces. She was a stanch five-year-old, and she had 
roamed the mountains about Pop’s place at will. She 


i88 


FREE RANGE FANNING 


went like a wild thing over the broken going. The loose 
stones and the gravel, which had turned the chestnut 
gelding into a clumsy blunderer, were nothing to her. 
She seemed to have a separate brain in each foot, telling 
her how to handle her ground. And always there was 
that catlike agility with which she wound among the 
rocks, hardly impairing her speed as she swerved. An¬ 
drew found her a book whose pages he could turn for¬ 
ever and always find something new. 

He forgot where he was going. He only knew that 
the wind was clipping his face and that Sally was eating 
up the ground, and he came to himself with a start, after 
a moment, realizing that his dream had carried him peril¬ 
ously out of the mouth of the ravine. He had even 
allowed the mare to reach a bit of winding road, rough 
indeed, but cut by many wheels and making a white 
streak across the country. Andrew drew in his breath 
anxiously and turned her back for the canon. 


CHAPTER XXVIII 

THE BLOND BEARD 

I T was, indeed, a grave moment, yet the chances were 
large that even if he met some one on the road he 
would not be recognized, for it had been many days since 
the death of Andrew Panning was announced through 
the countryside. He gritted his teeth when he thought 
that this single burst of childish carelessness might have 
imperiled all that he and Jud and Pop had worked for 
so long and so earnestly—the time when he could take 
the bay mare and start the ride across the mountains to 
the comparative safety on the other side. 

That time, he made up his mind, would be the next 
evening. He was well; Sally was thoroughly mastered; 
and, with a horse beneath him which, he felt, could 
give even the gray stallion of Hal Dozier hard work, 
and therefore show her heels to any other animal on the 
mountain desert, he looked forward to the crossing of 
the mountains as an accomplished fact. Always sup¬ 
posing that he could pass Twin Falls and the fringe of 
towns in the hills, without being recognized and the alarm 
sent out. 

Going back up the road toward the ravine at a brisk 
canter, he pursued the illuminating comparison between 
Sally and Dozier’s famous Gray Peter. Of course, noth¬ 
ing but a downright test of speed and weight-carrying 
power, horse to horse, could decide which was the supe¬ 
rior, but Andrew had ridden Gray Peter many times 
when he and Uncle Jasper went out to the Dozier 


190 FREE RANGE FANNING 

place, and he felt that he could sum up the differences 
between the two beautiful animals. Sally was the smaller 
of the two, for instance. She could not stand more 
than fifteen hands, or fifteen-one at the most. Gray 
Peter was a full sixteen hands of strong bone and fine 
muscle, a big animal—almost too big for some purposes. 
Among these rocks, now, he would stand no chance with 
Sally. Gray Peter was a picture horse. When one 
looked at him one felt that he was a standard by which 
other animals should be measured. He carried his head 
loftily, and there was a lordly flaunt to his tail. On 
the other hand, Sally was rather long and low. Her 
back, indeed, was comparatively short, as the back of 
a good saddle horse must be, but she had a long line 
underneath, so long that one felt at first glance that she 
would be apt to break down under a hard ride and a big 
burden. There was something subtly deceptive about 
her—she got that impression of length not so much out 
of her coupling as from the great slope and length of 
her shoulders and the length of the straight croup. Fur¬ 
thermore, her neck, which was by no means the heavy 
neck of the gray stallion, she was apt to carry stretched 
rather straight out and not curled proudly up as Gray 
Peter carried his. Neither did she bear her tail so 
proudly. Some of this, of course, was due to the dif¬ 
ference between a mare and a stallion, but still more 
came from the differing natures of the two animals. In 
the head lay the greatest variation. The head of Gray 
Peter was close to perfection, light, compact, heavy of 
jowl, a great distance from the eye to the angle of the 
jaw, and well set upon his neck; his eye at all times was 
filled with an intolerable brightness, a keen flame of 
courage and eagerness. But one could find a fault with 
Sally’s head. In general, it was very well shaped, with 


THE BLOND BEARD 191 

the wide forehead and all the other good points which 
invariably go with that feature; but her face was just 
a trifle dished; her ears, though of an almost transparently 
delicate tissue, were a bit too long, but very thin and 
tapering. Moreover, her eye was apt to be a bit dull. 
She had been a pet all her life, and, like most pets, her 
eye partook of the human quality. It had a conversa¬ 
tional way of brightening and growing dull. On the 
whole, the head of Sally had a whimsical, inquisitive 
expression, and by her whole carriage she seemed to be 
perpetually putting her nose into other business than 
her own. A horseman would have wished to send her 
to school, where she would have been taught to cock up 
her tail and bend her neck. 

But the gait was the main difference. Riding Gray 
Peter, one felt an enormous force urging at the bit and 
ready and willing to expend itself to the very last ounce, 
with tremendous courage and good heart; there was 
always a touch of fear that Gray Peter, plunging unabated 
over rough and smooth, might be running himself out. 
But Sally would not maintain one pace. She was apt 
to shorten her stride for choppy going, and she would 
lengthen it like a witch on the level. She kept changing 
the elevation of her head. She ran freely, looking about 
her and taking note of what she saw, so that she gave 
an indescribable effect of enjoying the gallop just as 
much as her rider, but in a different way. When Andrew 
spoke to her she would flick an ear back as though she 
listened to him with half her mind, and, if she approved 
of his order, both ears were pricking at once, but, if 
she did not like the direction, her ears went back and she 
ran sullenly. All in all. Gray Peter was a glorious ma¬ 
chine; Sally was a tricky intelligence. Gray Peter’s 


192 FREE RANGE FANNING 

heart was never in doubt, but what would Sally’s courage 
be in a pinch ? 

Full of these comparisons, studying Sally as one would 
study a friend, Andrew forgot again all around him, 
and so he came suddenly, around a bend in the road, 
upon a buckboard with two men in it. He went by the 
buckboard with a wave of greeting and a side glance, 
and it was not until he was quite around the elbow turn 
that he remembered that one of the men in the wagon 
had looked at him with a strange intentness. It was a 
big man with a great blond beard, parted as though with 
a comb by the wind. Andrew stopped Sally with a 
word and thought. Then it rushed back on him. That 
was Mike, who had drunk with him at the bar. Had he 
also been recognized ? 

He rode back around the bend, and there, down the 
road, he saw the buckboard bouncing, with the two 
horses pulling it at a dead gallop and the driver leaning 
back in the seat. 

But the other man, the big man with the beard, had 
picked a rifle out of the bed of the wagon, and now he 
sat turned in the seat, with his blond beard blown side- 
wise as he looked back. Beyond a doubt Andrew had 
been recognized, and now the two were speeding to Tomo 
to give their report and raise the alarm a second time. 
Andrew, with a groan, shot his hand to the long holster 
of the rifle which Pop had insisted that he take with him 
if he rode out. There was still plenty of time for a long 
shot. He saw the rifle jerk up to the shoulder of Mike; 
something hummed by him, and then the report came 
barking up the ravine. 

But Andrew turned Sally and went around the bend; 
that old desire to rush on the men and shoot them down, 
that same cold tingling of the nerves, which he had felt 


THE BLOND BEARD 


193 

when he faced the posse after the fall of Bill Dozier, was 
on him again, and he had to fight it down. He mas¬ 
tered it, and galloped with a heavy heart up the ravine 
and to the house of Pop. The old man saw him; he 
called to Jud, and the two stood in front of the door to 
admire the horseman and his horse. But Andrew flung 
himself out of the saddle and came to them sadly. He 
told them what had happened, the meeting, the recog¬ 
nition. There was only one thing to do—make up the 
pack as soon as possible and leave the place. For they 
would know where he had been hiding. Sally was fa¬ 
mous all through the mountains; she was known as Pop’s 
outlaw horse, and the searchers would come straight to 
his house. 

Pop took the news philosophically, but Jud became a 
pitiful figure of stone in his grief. He came to life 
again to help in the packing. They worked swiftly, and 
Andrew began to ask the final questions about the best 
and least-known trails over the mountains. Pop dis¬ 
couraged the attempt. 

'‘You seen what happened before,” he said. "They’ll 
have learned their lesson from Hal Dozier. They’ll take 
the telephone and rouse the towns all along the moun¬ 
tains. In two hours, Andy, two hundred men will be 
blocking every trail and closin’ in on you.” 

And Andrew reluctantly admitted the truth of what 
he said. Even if he had started before any warning had 
been given, it would have been perilous work to get 
across the belt of towns and mountain grazing lands 
unrecognized; but, now that the warning would go out 
from Tomo in a few hours, it would be a manifest folly. 
He resigned himself gloomily to turning back onto the 
mountain desert, and now he remembered the warning 
of failure which Henry Allister had given him. He 


FREE RANGE FANNING 


194 

felt, indeed, that the great outlaw had simply allowed 
him to run on a long rope, knowing that he must travel 
in a circle and eventually come back to the band. 

Now the pack was made—he saw Jud covertly tuck 
some little mementoes into it—and he drew Pop aside 
and dropped a weight of gold coins into his pocket. 

‘‘You tarnation scoundrel!” began Pop huskily. 

“Hush,” said Andrew, “or Jud will hear you and know 
that I’ve tried to leave some money. You don’t want to 
ruin me with Jud, do you?” 

Pop was uneasy and uncertain. 

“I’ve had your food these weeks and your care. Pop,” 
said Andrew, “and now I walk off with a saddle and a 
horse and an outfit all yours. It’s too much. I can’t 
take charity. But suppose I accept it as a gift; I leave 
you an exchange—a present for Jud that you can give 
him later on. Is that fair?” 

“Andy,” said the old man, “you’ve double crossed me, 
and you’ve got me where I can’t talk out before Jud. 
But I’ll get even yet. Good-by, lad, and put this one 
thing under your hat: It’s the loneliness that’s goin’ 
to be the hardest thing to fight, Andy. You’ll get so 
tired of bein’ by yourself that you’ll risk murder for the 
sake of a talk. But then hold hard. Stay by yourself. 
Don’t trust to nobody. And keep clear of towns. Will 
you do that?” 

“That’s plain common sense. Pop.” 

“Aye, lad, and the plain things are always the hardest 
things tO' do.” 

Next came Jud. He was very white, but he ap¬ 
proached Andrew with a careless swagger and shook 
hands firmly. 

“When you bump into that Dozier, Andy,” he said, 
“get him, will you ? S’long!” 


THE BLOND BEARD 


195 

He turned sharply and sauntered toward the open 
door of the house. But before he was halfway to it 
they heard a choking sound; Jud broke into a run, and, 
once past the door, slammed it behind him. 

“Don’t mind him,” said Pop, clearing his throat vio¬ 
lently. “He’ll cry the sick feelin’ out of his insides. God 
bless you, Andy! And remember what I say: The 
loneliness is the hard thing to fight, but keep clear of 
men, and after a time they’ll forget about you. You 
can settle down and nobody’ll rake up old scores. I 
know.” 

“D’you think it can be done ?” 

There was a faint, cold twinkle in the eyes of Pop. 
“I’ll tell a man it can be done,” he said slowly. “When 
you come back here I may be able to tell you a little 
story, Andy. Now climb on Sally and don’t hit nothin’ 
but the high spots.” 


CHAPTER XXIX 

TRUTH AND FICTION 

E ven in his own lifetime a man in the mountain des¬ 
ert passes swiftly from the fact of history into the 
dream of legend. The telephone and the newspaper can¬ 
not bring that lonely region into the domain of cold 
truth. In the time that followed people seized on the 
story of Andrew Tanning and embroidered it with rare 
trimmings. It was told over and over again in saloons 
and around family firesides and at the general-merchan¬ 
dise stores and in the bunk houses of many ranches. 
Each retelling emphasized something new and added to 
the vividness of the yarn. They not only squeezed every 
available drop of interest out of the facts, but they added 
quite imaginary details. For Andrew had done what 
many men failed to do in spite of a score of killings—* 
he struck the public fancy. People realized, however 
vaguely, that here was a unique story of the making of 
a desperado, and they gathered the story of Andrew 
Tanning to their hearts. 

On the whole, it was not an unkindly interest. In 
reality the sympathy was with the outlaw. For every 
one knew that Hal Dozier was on the trail again, and 
every one felt that in the end he would run down his 
man, and there was a general hope that the chase might 
be a long one. For one thing, the end of that chase 
would have removed one of the few vital current bits 
of news. Men could no longer open conversations by 
asking the last tidings of Andrew. Such questions were 


TRUTH AND FICTION 


197, 

iaiways a signal for an unlocking of tongues around the 
circle. 

Many untruths were told. For instance, the blowing 
of the safe in Allertown was falsely attributed to An¬ 
drew, while in reality he knew nothing about ‘‘soup” and 
its uses. And the running of the cows off the Circle O 
Bar range toward the border was another exploit which 
was wrongly checked to his credit or discredit. Also 
the brutal butchery in the night at Buffalo Head was 
sometimes said to be Andrew’s work, but in general the 
men of the mountain desert came to know that the out¬ 
law was not a red-handed murderer, but simply a man 
who fought for his own life. 

The truths in themselves were enough to bear telling 
and retelling. The tale of how he wrote the message 
on the bar in Tomo was a dainty bit for spinners of yarns, 
and the breaking through the circle around Hank Rainer’s 
cabin was another fine section, to say nothing of that 
historic occasion when he routed the posse and killed 
Bill Dozier. Yet these things were nothing to what had 
followed. Andrew’s Thanksgiving dinner at William 
Foster’s house, with a revolver on the table and a smile 
on his lips, was a pleasant tale and a thrilling one as 
well, for Foster had been able to go to the telephone and 
warn the nearest officer of the law. There was the inci¬ 
dent of the jammed rifle at The Crossing; the tale of 
how a youngster at Tomo decided that he would rival 
the career of the great man—how he got a fine bay mare 
and started a blossoming career of crime by “sticking 
up” three men on the road and committing several depre¬ 
dations which were all attributed to Andrew, until An¬ 
drew himself ran down the foolish fellow, shot the gun 
out of his hand, gave him a talking that recalled his lost 
senses, and then turned him gently over to his family. 


FREE RANGE FANNING 


198 

Out of his own pocket he made a contribution so that 
young Lasker could return to the victims the money he 
had stolen. The Lasker family had tried to hush up the 
tale, but it had leaked out and gone the rounds, and it 
made a famous yarn. 

All these and other things would make volumes and 
volumes if they were narrated in full. Particularly, 
there was the story of ‘‘Sandy^’ Macintosh, He came 
from the far south with a repute as a man hunter that 
chilled the blood even of the lawful. His list of victims 
was as long as a man’s arm, and Sandy determined to 
finish the job which was apparently too big for even 
the capable hands and the fast horse of Hal Dozier. Hal 
took a vacation and left an empty stage for the celebrated 
Sandy. And Sandy Macintosh established relays of 
horses and ran the bay mare in a circle, but after thirty- 
six hours of furious riding the outlaw broke out of the 
circle and cantered away, and Sandy rode back, leaving 
three dead horses behind him. Then, frantic with 
shame, he issued a challenge to Andrew Fanning, and 
Andrew Fanning came out of the hills and m.et Sandy 
and beat him to the draw and shot him twice through 
the right shoulder. This story of Sandy Macintosh 
became an epic; men were never tired of retelling it. 
Go out into the mountain desert to-day, and in any of a 
hundred villages broach the name of Fanning, and nine 
chances out of ten some man will say: “I suppose you 
know how Sandy Macintosh came up to get Andy?” In 
such a case it is always wise to pretend ignorance and 
listen, for the tale is sure to be interesting—and new. 

But all other details fell into insignificance compared 
with the general theme, which was the mighty duel be¬ 
tween Andrew and Hal Dozier—^the unescapable man 
hunter and the trap-wise outlaw. Hal did not lose any 


TRUTH AND FICTION 


199 


reputation because he failed to take Andrew Fanning 
at once. The very fact that he was able to keep close 
enough to make out the trail at all increased his fame. 
He had been a household word in the mountain desert 
before; he became a daily topic of conversation now. 
He did not even lose his high standing because he would 
not hunt Andrew alone. He always kept a group with 
him, and people said that he was wise to do it. Not 
because he was not a match for Andrew Fanning single- 
handed, but because it was folly to risk life when there 
were odds which might be used against the desperado. 
But every one felt that eventually Fanning would draw 
the deputy marshal away from his posse, and then the 
outlaw would turn, and there would follow a battle of 
the giants. The whole mountain desert waited for that 
time to come and bated its breath in hope and fear of it. 

But if the men of the mountain desert considered Hal 
Dozier the greatest enemy of Andrew, he himself had 
quite another point of view. It was th'e loneliness, as 
Pop had promised him. It was the consuming loneli¬ 
ness that ate into his heart. There were days when he 
hardly touched food such was his distaste for the ugly 
messes which he had to cook with his own hands; there 
were days when he would have risked his life to eat a 
meal served by the hands of another and cooked by an¬ 
other man. That was the secret of that Thanksgiving 
dinner at the Foster house, though others put it down 
to sheer, reckless mischief. And to-day, as he made his 
fire between two stones—a smoldering, evil-smelling fire 
of sagebrush—the smoke kept running up his clothes 
and choking his lungs with its pungency. And the fat 
bacon which he cut turned his stomach. At last he sat 
down, forgetting the bacon in the pan, forgetting the 


200 


FREE RANGE FANNING 


long fast and the hard ride which had preceded this naeal, 
and stared at the fire. 

Rather, the fire was the thing which he kept chiefly in 
the center of his vision, but his glances went everywhere, 
to all sides, up, and down. Hal Dozier had hunted him 
hotly down the valley of the Little Silver River, but near 
the village of Los Toros the fagged posse and Hal him¬ 
self had dropped back and once more given up the chase. 
No doubt they would rest for a few hours in the town, 
change horses, and then come after him again. 

It was a new Andrew Fanning that sat there by the 
fire. He had left Martindale a clear-faced boy; the 
months that followed had changed him to a man; the 
boyhood had been literally burned out of him. The skin 
of his face, indeed, refused to tan, but now, instead of a 
healthy and crisp white it was a colorless sallow. The 
rounded cheeks were now straight and sank in sharply 
beneath his cheek bones, with a sharply incised line be¬ 
side the mouth. And his expression at all times was 
one of quivering alertness—the mouth a little compressed 
and straight, the nostrils seeming a trifle distended, and 
the eyes as restless as the eyes of a hungry wolf. The 
old blank, dull look was gone from them; the uneasy 
glitter which had come into them when he fled from 
Martindale on that age-long day had never died from 
them since. Sometimes, when his glance steadied on 
one object, the light became a point, but usually it was 
a continual shifting. Take a candle and pass it from 
side to side before the eyes of a man, and the same 
gleam will come into them which was never out of the 
eyes of Andrew Fanning. Two things might have been 
said about that expression of his eyes: that it was the 
glimmer of danger or the light of fear that turns into 
jdanger. 


TRUTH AND FICTION 


201 


Moreover, all of Andrew’s actions had come to bear 
out this same expression of his face. If he sat down his 
legs were gathered, and he seemed about to stand up. 
If he walked he went with a nervous step, rising a little 
on his toes as though he were about to break into a run 
or as though he were poising himself to whirl at any 
alarm. He sat in this manner even now, under that 
dead gray sky of sheeted clouds, and in the middle of 
that great rolling plain, lifeless and colorless—^lifeless 
except for the wind that hummed across it, pointed with 
cold. Andrew, looking from the dull glimmer of his 
fire to that dead waste, sighed. He whistled, and Sally 
came instantly to the call and dropped her head beside 
his own. She, at least, had not changed in the long 
pursuits and the hard life. It had made her gaunt. It 
had hardened and matured her muscles so that now along 
her shoulders there were ridges and ripples, iron hard, 
and her thighs were twining masses of strength; but 
her head was the same, and her changeable, human eyes, 
the eyes of a pet, had not altered. 

She stood there with her head down, silently; and 
Andrew, his hands locked around his knees, neither spoke 
to her nor stirred. But by degrees the pain and the 
hunger went out of his face, and, as though she knew 
that she was no longer needed, Sally tipped his sombrero 
over his eyes with a toss of her head, and, having given 
this signal of disgust at being called without a purpose, 
she went back to her work of cropping the gramma grass, 
which of all grasses a horse loves best. Andrew straight¬ 
ened his hat and cast one glance after her. Words, 
indeed, were almost unnecessary between them now. By 
a pressure of his knees he could guide her; by a gesture 
he could call her. 

A shade of thought passed over his face as he looked 


202 FREE RANGE FANNING 

at her. But this time the posse was probably once more 
starting on out of Los Toros and taking his trail. It 
would mean another test; he did not fear for her, but 
he pitied her for the hard work that was coming, and 
he looked almost with regret over the long racing lines 
of her body. And it was then, coming out of the sight 
of Sally, the thought of the posse, and the disgust for 
the greasy bacon in the pan, that Andrew received a 
quite new idea. It was to stop his flight, turn about, 
and double like a fox straight back toward Los Toros, 
making a detour to the left. The posse would plunge 
ahead, and he could cut in toward Los Toros. For he 
had determined to eat once again, at least, at a table 
covered with a white cloth, food prepared by the hand 
of another. Sally was known; he would leave her in 
the grove beside the Little Silver River. For himself, 
weeks had passed since any man had seen him, and cer¬ 
tainly no one in Los Toros had met him face to face. 
He would be unknown except for a general description. 
And to disarm suspicion entirely he would leave his car¬ 
tridge belt and his revolver with Sally in the woods. 
For what human being, no matter how imaginative, would 
possibly dream of Andrew Fanning going unarmed into 
a town and sitting calmly at a table to order a meal ? 


CHAPTER XXX 


GREEK MEETS GREEK 

P eople in telling that story long afterward, and it 
became one of the favorite tales connected with 
Andrew Panning, attributed the whole maneuver to an 
outbreak of madness. Just as madness appeared the 
campaign of Napoleon when he dropped over the Alps 
into Italy, and, while Melas was taking Genoa from 
heroic Massena, appeared quietly on that unfortunate 
general’s communications and then blotted him out at 
Marengo. And that campaign would have been judged 
madness instead of genius if it had not worked. 

Retrospection made Andrew Lanning’s coming to Los 
Toros a mad freak, whereas it was in reality a very 
clever stroke. Hal Dozier would have been on the road 
five hours before if he had not been held up in the mat¬ 
ter of horses, but this is to tell the story out of turn. 

Andrew saddled the mare and sent her back swiftly 
out of the plain, over the hills, and then dropped her 
down into the valley of the Little Silver River until he 
reached the grove of trees just outside Los Toros—some 
four hundred yards, say, from the little group of houses. 
He then took off his belt, hung it over the pommel, 
fastened the reins to the belt, and turned away. Sally 
would stay where he left her—unless some one else tried 
to get to her head, and then she would fight like a wild 
cat. He knew that, and he therefore started for Los 
Toros with his line of communications sufficiently 
guarded. 


204 


FREE RANGE FANNING 


He instinctively thought first of drawing his hat low 
over his eyes and walking swiftly; a moment of calm 
figuring told him that the better way was to push the 
hat to the back of his head, put his hands in his pockets, 
and go whistling through the streets of the town. And 
this was actually the manner in which he made his entry 
to Los Toros. It was not much of a place—say five 
hundred people—but its single street looked as large and 
as long as a great avenue to Andrew as he sauntered 
carelessly toward the restaurant. It was the middle of 
the gray afternoon; there were few people about, and 
the two or three whom Andrew passed nodded a greet¬ 
ing. Each time they raised their hands the fingers of 
Andrew twitched, but he made himself smile back at them 
and waved in return. 

He went on until he came to the restaurant. It was a 
long, narrow room with a row of tables down each side, 
and a little counter and cash register beside the door, 
some gaudy posters on the wall, a screen at the rear to 
hide the entrance to the kitchen, faded green sackcloth 
tacked on the ceiling to cover the bare boards, and a 
ragged strip of linoleum on the narrow passage between 
the tables. 

These things Andrew saw with the first flick of his 
eyes as he came through the door; as for people, there 
was a fat old man sitting behind the cash register in a 
dirty white apron and two men in greasy overalls and 
black shirts, perhaps from the railroad. There was one 
other thing which immediately blotted out all the rest; 
it was a big poster, about halfway down the wall, on 
which appeared in staring letters: ‘‘Ten thousand dol¬ 
lars reward for the apprehension, dead or alive, of An¬ 
drew Fanning.’^ Above this caption was a picture of 
him, and below the big print appeared the body of smaller 


GREEK MEETS GREEK 


205 

type which named his particular features. Straight to 
this sign Andrew walked and sat down at the table be¬ 
neath it. 

It was no hypnotic attraction that took him there. He 
knew perfectly well that if a man noticed that sign he 
would never dream of connecting the man for whom, 
dead or alive, ten thousand dollars was to be paid, with 
the man who sat underneath the picture calmly eating his 
lunch in the middle of a town. And a town from which 
a posse pursuing the man had just ridden, as Andrew 
was sure they had gone. Even if some supercurious 
person should make a comparison, he would not proceed 
far with it, Andrew was sure, for the picture represented 
the round, young face of a person who hardly existed 
now; the hardened features of Andrew were now only 
a skinny caricature of what they had been. 

At any rate, Andrew sat down beneath the picture, 
and, instead of resting one elbow on the table and par¬ 
tially veiling his face with his hand, as he might most 
naturally have done, he tilted back easily in his chair and 
looked up at the poster. The fat man from behind the 
register had come to take his order. He noted the direc¬ 
tion of Andrew’s eyes while he jotted down the items. 

“You ain’t the first,” he said, “that’s looked at that. 
Think of the gent that’ll get ten thousand dollars out of 
a single slug?” 

“I can name the man who’ll get it,” said Andrew, “and 
his name is Hal Dozier.” 

’ “I guess you ain’t far wrong,” replied the other. “For 
that matter, the folks around here would mostly make 
the same guess. But maybe Hal’s luck will take a turn.” 

“Well,” said Andrew, “if he gets the money I’ll say 
that he’s earned it. And rush in some bread first, cap¬ 
tain. I’m two-thirds starved.” 


206 


FREE RANGE FANNING 


It was a historic meal in more than one way. The 
size of it was one notable feature, and even Andrew had 
to loosen his belt when he came to attack the main fea¬ 
ture, which was a vast steak with fried eggs scattered 
over the top of it. The proprietor, admiring such gas¬ 
tronomic prowess, hung about Andrew and made sug¬ 
gestions of side dishes, corn, tomatoes, and canned fish. 
The suggestions were added; the table groaned; for a diet 
of beans and bacon leaves vast holes which take much 
filling. 

The steak had been reduced to a meager rim before 
Andrew had any attention to pay to the paper which had 
been placed on his table. It was an eight-page sheet 
entitled The Granville Bugle, and a subhead announced 
that it was ‘'the greatest paper on the ranges and the 
cattleman’s guide.” It was devoted strictly to news of 
the mountain desert. Andrew found a picture on the 
first page, a picture of Hal Dozier, and over the picture 
the following caption: “Watch this column for news 
of the Andrew Fanning hunt.” 

The article in this week’s issue contained few facts. 
It announced a number of generalities: “Marshal Hal 

Dozier, when interviewed, said-” and a great many 

innocuous things which he was sure that grim hunter 
could not have spoken. He passed over the rest of the 
column in careless contempt. On the second page, in 
a muddle of short notices, one headline caught his eye 
and held it: “Charles Merchant to Wed Society Belle.” 

The editor had spread his talents for the public eye 
in doing justice to it: 

On the fifteenth of the month will be consum¬ 
mated a romance which began last year, when 
Charles Merchant, son of the well-known cattle king, 



GREEK MEETS GREEK 


207^ 

John Merchant, went East and met Miss Anne 

Withero. It is Miss Withero’s second visit in the 

West, and it is now announced that the marriage- 

Andrew crumpled the paper and let it fall. He 
glanced at a calender on the wall opposite him. There 
remained six days before the wedding. 

And he was still so stunned by that announcement 
that, raising his head slowly, his thoughts spinning, he 
looked up and encountered the eyes of Hal Dozier as 
the latter sank into a chair. 

He did not complete the act, but was arrested in mid¬ 
air, one hand grasping the back of the chair, the other 
hand at his hip. Andrew, in the space of an instant, 
thought of three things—^to kick the table from him and 
try to get to the side door of the place, to catch up the 
heavy sugar bowl and attempt to bowl over his man with 
a well-directed blow, or to simply sit and look Hal Dozier 
in the eye. 

He had thought of the three things in the space that 
it would take a dog to snap at a fly and look away. He 
dismissed the first alternatives as absurd, and, picking 
up his cup of coffee, he raised his eyes slowly toward 
the ceiling, after the time-honored fashion of a man 
draining a glass, let his glance move gradually up and 
catch on the face of Dozier, and then, without haste, 
lowered the cup again to its saucer. 

The flush of his own heavy meal kept his pallor from 
showing. As for Dozier, there was a succession of 
changes in his features, and then he concluded by lower¬ 
ing himself heavily the rest of the way into his chair. 
He gave his order to the proprietor in a dazed fashion, 
looking straight at Andrew, and the latter knew perfectly 
That the deputy marshal felt that he was in a dream. 



208 


FREE RANGE FANNING 


He was seeing what was not possible to see; his eyes 
were telling his brain in definite terms: “There sits 
Andrew Fanning and ten thousand dollars.” But the 
reason of Dozier was speaking no less decidedly: “There 
sits a man without a weapon at his hip and actually be¬ 
neath the poster which offers a reward for the capture 
of the person he resembles. Also, he is in a restaurant 
in the middle of a town. I have only to raise my voice 
in order to surround him.” 

And reason gained the upper hand, though Dozier con¬ 
tinued to look at Andrew in a fascinated manner. 

Suddenly the outlaw knew that it would not do to dis¬ 
regard that glance so long continued. To disregard it 
would be to start the suspicions of Dozier as soon as 
his brain cleared, and the least spark would at once send 
the man hunter into a flame of conviction. 

“Hello, stranger,” said Andrew, and he merely made 
his voice a trifle husky and deep. “D’you know me ?” 

The eyes of Dozier widened, there was a convulsive 
motion of his arm, and then his glance wandered slowly 
away. 

“Excuse me,” he said. “I thought I remembered your 
face.” 

Should he let it rest at that? No, better risk a finish¬ 
ing touch. “No harm done,” he said in the same loud 
voice. ‘‘Hey, captain, another cup of coffee, will you? 
And a cigar.” 

He tilted back in his chair. He was about to begin 
whistling, but feeling that this would be a trifle too 
brazen, he merely folded his hands behind his head and 
began to hum. And all the time his nerves were jump¬ 
ing, and that old frenzy was taking him by the throat, 
that bulldog eagerness for the fight. But fight empty- 
handed—and against Hal Dozier? 


GREEK MEETS GREEK 


209 

The restaurant owner brought Dozier’s order, and then 
the coffee and the cigar to Andrew, and while the deputy 
continued to look with dumb fascination at Andrew with 
swift side glances, Andrew finished his second cup. He 
bit off the end of his cigar, asked for his check, and paid 
it, and then felt his nerves crumble and go to pieces. 

It was not Hal Dozier who sat there, but death itself 
that looked him in the face. One false move, one wrong 
gesture, would betray him. How could he teli? That 
very moment his expression might have altered into 
something which the marshal could not fail to recognize, 
and the moment thdt final touch came there would be a 
gun play swifter than the eye could follow—simply a 
flash of steel and a simultaneous explosion. 

Even now, with the cigar between his teeth, he knew 
that if he lighted a match the match would tremble be¬ 
tween his fingers, and that trembling would betray him 
to Dozier. Was he wrong? Was there not even now 
a tightening of the jaw muscles of the marshal, a clear¬ 
ing and narrowing of his eyes, such as preceded action? 

Yet he must not sit there, either, with the cigar be¬ 
tween his teeth, unlighted. It was a little thing, but 
the weight of a feather would turn the balance and loose 
on him the thunderbolt of Hal Dozier in action. 

But what could he do? 

He found a thing in the very deeps of his despair. 
He got up from his chair, pushed his hat calmly upon 
his head—though that surely must complete Dozier’s pic¬ 
ture—and walked straight to the deputy. He dropped 
both hands upon the edge of Hal’s table and leaned 
across it. 

‘'Got^ light, partner?” he asked. 

And standing there over the table, he knew that Dozier 
had at length finally and definitely recognized him; but 


210 


FREE RANGE FANNING 


that the numbed brain of the marshal refused to permit 
him to act. He believed and yet he dared not believe his 
belief. Andrew saw the glance of Dozier go to his hip— 
his hip which the holster had rubbed until it gleamed. 
But no matter—the gun was not there—and stunned 
again by that impossible fact Dozier reached back and 
brought up his hand bearing a match box. He took out 
a match. He lighted it, his brows drawing together and 
slackening all the time, and then he looked up, his eyes 
rising with the lighted match, and stared full into the 
eyes of Andrew. 

It was discovery undoubtedly—and how long would 
that mental paralysis last ? 

Andrew looked straight back into those eyes. His 
cigar took the fire and sucked in the flame. A cloud of 
smoke puffed out and rolled toward Hal Dozier, and 
Andrew turned leisurely and walked toward the door. 

He was a yard from it. 

‘Tanning!” came a voice behind him, terrible, like a 
scream of pain. 

As he leaped forward a gun spoke heavily in the room. 
He heard the bullet crunch into the frame of the door; 
the door itself was split by the second shot as Andrew 
slammed it shut. Then he raced around the corner of 
the restaurant and made for the grove. 

There was not a sound behind him for a moment. 
Then a roar rose from the village and rushed after him. 
It gave him wings. And, looking back, he saw that Hal 
Dozier was not among the pursuers. No, half a dozen 
men were running, and firing as they ran, but there was 
not a rifle in the lot, and it takes a good man to land a 
bullet on the run where he is firing at a dodging target. 
The pursuers lost ground; they stopped and yelled for 
horses. 


GREEK MEETS GREEK 


2II 


But that was what Hal Dozier was doing now. He 
was jerking a saddle on the back of Gray Peter, and in 
sixty seconds he would be tearing out of Los Toros. In 
the same space Andrew was in his own saddle with a 
flying leap and spurring out of the trees. 


CHAPTER XXXI 


HORSE AGAINST HORSE 

B y one thing he knew the utter desperation of Hal 
Dozier. For the man had fired while Andrew’s 
back was turned. The bullet had followed the warning 
cry as swiftly as the strike of a snake follows its rattle. 
Luck and his sudden leap forward had unbalanced the 
nice aim of Dozier, and perhaps his mental agitation 
had contributed to it. But, at any rate, Andrew was 
troubled as he cleared the edge of the trees and cantered 
Sally not too swiftly along the Little Silver River to¬ 
ward Las Casas mountains, a little east of south. 

He did not hurry her, partly because he wished to stay 
close and make sure of the number and force of his pur¬ 
suers, and partly because he already had a lead sufficient 
to keep out of any but chance rifle shots. 

He had not long to wait. Men boiled out of the vil¬ 
lage like hornets out of a shaken nest. He could see 
them buckling on belts while they were riding with the 
reins in their teeth. And they came like the wind, yell¬ 
ing at the sight of their quarry. Who would not kill a 
horse for the sake of saying that he had been within 
pistol range of the great outlaw? But, fast as their 
horses ran, Dozier, on Gray Peter, was able to keep up 
with them and also to range easily from group to group. 
Truly, Gray Peter was a glorious animal! For the hun¬ 
dredth time Andrew admitted it. If he were allowed 
.to stretch out after the mare, what would the result be ? 
The pursuers, under the direction of Dozier, spread 


HORSE AGAINST HORSE 


213 

across the river bottom and having formed so that no 
tricky doubling could leave them in the lurch on a blind 
trail, they began to use a new set of tactics. It was new 
to Hal Dozier, but it was the old trick of his dead brother. 

Dozier kept Gray Peter at a steady pace, never vary¬ 
ing his gait. But, on either side of him groups of his 
followers urged their horses forward at breakneck speed. 
Three or four would send home the spurs and rush up 
the river bottom after Andrew. If he did not hurry on 
they opened fire with their rifles from a short distance 
and sent a hail of random bullets, but Andrew knew that 
a random bullet carries just as much force as a well-aimed 
one, and chance might be on the side of one of those 
shots. He dared not allow them to come too close. Yet 
his heart rejoiced as he watched the manner in which 
Sally accepted these challenges. She never once had to 
lurch into her racing gait; she took the rushes of the 
cow ponies behind her by merely lengthening her stride 
until she seemed to be settling closer and closer to the 
ground, and always the horses behind her were winded 
and had to fall back. 

Yet they included some fine strains of blood in that 
bunch; only there was lacking the difference between a 
good animal and a fine one, in addition to the fact that 
Sally was long since hardened to just such races as this 
one. 

If Andrew had let out Sally she would Have walked 
away from them all, but he dared not do that. For, 
after he had run the heart out of the commoner ones, 
there remained Gray Peter in reserve, never changing 
his pace, never hurrying, falling often far back, as the 
groups one after another pushed close to Sally and made 
her spurt, gaining again when the spurts ended one by 
one. 


FREE RANGE FANNING 


214 

After all, there was nothing very new in these tactics. 
It was the fashion that a team of runners use against 
one dangerous opponent, challenging him one after the 
other and running him out so that the best in the team 
can come through with a spurt at the end and pass the 
flagging enemy. 

There were two hours of daylight; there was one hour 
of dusk; and all that time the crowd kept thrusting out 
its small groups, one after the other, reaching after Sally 
like different arms, and each time she answered the spurt, 
and always slipped away into a greater lead at the end 
of it. And then, while the twilight was turning into 
dark, Andrew looked back and saw the whole crowd 
rein in their horses and turn back. There remained a 
single figure following him, and that figure was easily 
seen, because it was a man on a gray horse. And then 
Andrew grasped the plan fully. The posse had played 
its part; the thing for which the mountain desert had 
waited was come at last, and Hal Dozier was going on 
to find his man single-handed and pull him down. 

Twice, before complete darkness set in, Andrew drew 
Sally back to a gentler gait, and twice he sent her on 
again. And each time he had been on the verge of turn¬ 
ing and going back to accept the challenge of Hal Dozier. 
Always two things stopped him. There was first the 
fear of the man which he frankly admitted, and more 
than that was the feeling that one thing lay before him 
to be done before he could meet Dozier and end the long 
trail. He must see Anne Withero. She was about to 
be married and be drawn out of his world and into a 
new one. He felt it was more important than life or 
death to see her before that transformation took place^ 
They would go East, no doubt. Two thousand miles^ 


HORSE AGAINST HORSE 


215 

the law and the mountains would fence him away from 
her after that. 

During the last months he accepted her as he accepted 
the stars—something far away from him, and yet some¬ 
thing which he knew was there and which he could look 
at perhaps out of his night. And now, by some pretext, 
by some wile, he must live to see her once more. After 
that let Hal Dozier meet him when he would. 

But with this in mind, as soon as the utter dark shut 
down, he swerved Sally to the right and worked slowly 
up through the mountains, heading due southwest and 
out of the valley of the Little Silver. He kept at it, 
through a district where the mare could not even trot a 
great deal of the time, for two or more hours. Then 
he found a little plateau thick with good grazing for 
Sally and with a spring near it. There he camped for 
the night, without food, without fire. 

And not once during the hours before morning did he 
close his eyes. When the first gray touched the sky he 
was in the saddle again; before the sun was up he had 
crossed the Las Casas and was going down the great 
shallow basin of the Roydon River. A fine, drizzling 
rain was falling, and Sally, tired from her hard work of 
the day before and the long duels with the horses of the 
posse, went even more down-heartedly moody than usual, 
shuffling wearily, but recovering herself with her usual 
catlike adroitness whenever her footing failed on the 
steep downslope. 

For all her dullness, it was a signal from Sally that 
saved Andrew. She jerked up her head and turned; 
he looked in the same direction and saw a form like a 
gray ghost coming over the hills to his left, a dim shape 
throug'h the rain. Gloomily Andrew watched Hal Do¬ 
zier come. Gray Peter had been fresher than Sally at 


2 I 6 


FREE RANGE FANNING 


the end of the run of the day before. He was fresher 
now. Andrew could tell that easily by the stretch of 
his gallop and the evenness of his pace as he rushed 
across the slope. He gave the word to Sally. She 
tossed up her head in mute rebellion at this new call for 
a race, and then broke into a canter whose first few 
strides, by way of showing her anger, were as choppy 
and lifeless as the stride of a plow horse. 

That was the beginning of the famous ride from the 
Las Casas mountains to the Roydon range, and all the 
distance across the Roydon valley. As a bird flies, it 
was a full seventy miles; as the horses galloped, winding 
to and fro to find the easier footing, it must have been 
a full eighty miles. That distance the gray horse and 
the bay ran in exactly nine hours and fifty-five minutes. 
To this time Hal Dozier swore in after days, and, though 
many a man has shaken his head over the tale, this is the 
story as it now runs current in the mountain desert, and 
this is the tale which two big stone pillars confirm. For 
Hal Dozier put them up to commemorate the run of 
great Gray Peter on this day—a pillar to mark the start 
and a pillar to mark the finish. The time is inscribed on 
the finish post. 

It started with a five-mile sprint—^literally five miles 
of hot racing in which each horse did its best. And in 
that five miles Gray Peter would most unquestionably 
have won had not one bit of luck fallen the mare. A 
hedge of young evergreen streaked before Sally, and 
Andrew put her at the mark; she cleared it like a bird, 
jumping easily and landing in her stride. It was not the 
first time she had jumped with Andrew. 

But Gray Peter was not a steeplechaser. He had not 
been trained to it, and he refused. His rider had to 
whirl and go up the line of shrubs until he found a place 


HORSE AGAINST HORSE 21^ 

to break through. Then he was after Sally again. But 
the moment that Andrew saw the marshal had been 
stopped he did not use the interim to push the mare and 
increase her lead. Very wisely he drew her back to the 
long, rocking canter which was her natural gait, and 
Sally got the breath which Gray Peter had run out of 
her. She also regained priceless lost ground, and when 
the gray came in view of the quarry again his work was 
all to do over again. 

Hal Dozier tried again in straightaway running. It 
had been his boast that nothing under the saddle in the 
mountain desert could keep away from him in a stretch 
of any distance, and he rode Gray Peter desperately to 
make his boast good. He failed. If that first stretch 
had been unbroken—but there his chance was gone, and, 
starting the second spurt, Andrew came to realize one 
greatly important truth—Sally could not sprint for any 
distance, but up to a certain pace she ran easily and with¬ 
out labor. That was the meaning of those comparatively 
short forelegs and the high croup which gave the slight 
and awkward down pitch to her figure—she was essen¬ 
tially a distance horse. Gray Peter could outfoot her 
by many seconds in a mile sprint, but, kept inside a cer¬ 
tain maximum, she ran tirelessly. He made it his point 
to see that she was never urged beyond that pace. He 
found another thing, that she took a hill in far better 
style than Peter, and she did far better in the rough, but 
on the level going he ate up her handicap swiftly. 

With a strength of his own found and a weakness in 
his pursuer, Andrew played remorselessly to that weak¬ 
ness with his strength. He sought the choppy ground 
as a preference and led the stallion through it wherever 
he could; he swung to the right, where there was a 


2 I 8 


FREE RANGE FANNING 


stretch of rolling hills, and once more Gray Peter had a 
losing space before him. 

So they came to the river itself, with Gray Peter com¬ 
fortably in the rear, but running well within his strength. 
Andrew paused in the shallows to allow Sally one swal¬ 
low; then he went on. But Dozier did not pause for 
even this. It was a grave mistake. 

And so the miles wore on. Sally was still running 
like a swallow for lightness, but Andrew knew by her 
breathing that she was giving vital strength to the effort. 
He talked to her constantly. He told her how Gray 
Peter ran behind them. He encouraged her with pet 
words. And Sally seemed to understand, for she flicked 
one ear back to listen, and then she pricked them both 
and kept at her work. 

It was a heart-tearing thing to see her run to the point 
of lather and then keep on. 

They were in low hills, and Gray Peter was losing 
steadily. They reached a broad flat, and the stallion 
gained with terrible insistence. Looking back, Andrew 
could see that the marshal had stripped away every ves¬ 
tige of his pack. He followed that example with a 
groan. And still Gray Peter gained. He went forward 
in the stirrups to ease the mare by putting more weight 
on her forehand; and still Gray Peter gained. 

It was the last great effort for the stallion. Before 
them rose the foothills of the Roydon mountains; be¬ 
hind them the Las Casas range was lost in mist. It 
seemed that they had been galloping like this for an in¬ 
finity of time, and Andrew was numb from the shoulders 
down. If he reached those hills Gray Peter was beaten. 
He knew it; Hal Dozier knew it; and the two great horses 
gave all their strength to the last duel of the race. 

The ears of Sally no longer pricked. They lay flat 


HORSE AGAINST HORSE 


219 

on her neck. The amazing lift was gone from her gait, 
and she pounded heavily with the forelegs. And still 
she struggled on. He looked back, and Gray Peter still 
gained, an inch at a time, and his stride did not seem to 
have abated. The one bitter question now was whether 
Sally would not collapse under the effort. With every 
lurch of her feet, Andrew expected to feel her crumble 
beneath him. And yet she went on. Courage? She 
was all courage! She was all heart, all nerve, and run¬ 
ning on it. Behind her came Gray Peter, and he also 
ran with his head stretched out. 

He was within rifle range now. Why did not Dozier 
fire? Perhaps he had set his heart on actually running 
Sally down, not dropping his prey with a distant shot. 

And still they flew across the flat. The hills were close 
now, and sometimes, when the drizzling rain which had 
wet Andrew to the skin and chilled him to the bone lifted, 
it seemed that the Roydon mountains were exactly above 
them, leaning out over him like a shadow. He called on 
Sally again and again. He touched her for the first time 
in her life with spurs, and she found something in the 
depths of her heart and her courage to answer with. 
She ran again with a ghost of her former buoyancy, 
and Gray Peter was held even. 

Not an inch could he gain after that. Andrew saw 
his pursuer raise his quirt and flog. It was useless. 
Each horse was running itself out, and no power could 
get more speed out of the pounding limbs. 

And with his head still turned, Andrew felt a shock 
and flounder. Sally had almost fallen. He jerked 
sharply up on the reins, and she broke into a staggering 
trot. Then Andrew saw that they had struck the slope 
of the first hill, a long, smooth rise which she would have 
taken at full speed in the beginning of the race, but now 


220 


FREE RANGE FANNING 


it broke her heart to make it. He called to her; he 
spurred again; the trot quickened, but though she labored 
bitterly, she could not raise a gallop. The trot was her 
best effort. 

There was a shrill yelling behind, and Andrew saw 
Dozier, a hand brandished above his head. He had seen 
Sally break down; Gray Peter would catch her; his 
horse would win that famous duel of speed and courage. 
Rifle? He had forgotten his rifle. He would go in, 
he would overhaul Sally, and then finish the chase with 
a play of revolvers. And in expectation of that end, 
Andrew drew his revolver. It hung the length of his 
arm; he found that his muscles were numb from the 
cold and the cramped position from the elbow down. 
Shoot? He was as helpless as though he had no gun at 
all. His hand shook crazily under the strain. And in 
the meantime, flogging with his quirt, no doubt the 
marshal had kept his blood in circulation. 

It gave Andrew a nightmare sensation, as of one fleeing 
in his sleep up a long stairs—only a step to gain safety, 
and yet his feet are turned to lead, and the horror rushes 
like the wind upon him from behind. He beat his hands 
together to bring back the blood. He bit the cold fin¬ 
gers. He thrashed his arms against the pommel of the 
saddle. There was only a dull pain; it would take long 
minutes to bring those hands back to the point of serv¬ 
ice, and in the meantime Gray Peter galloped upon him 
from behind 1 

Well, he would let Sally do her best. For the last 
time he called on her; for the last time she struggled to 
respond, and Andrew looked back and grimly watched 
the stallion sweeping across the last portion of the flat 
ground, closer, closer, and then, at the very base of the 


HORSE AGAINST HORSE 


221 


slope, Gray Peter tossed up his head, floundered, and 
went down, hurling his rider over his head. 

Andrew, fascinated, let Sally fall into a walk, while he 
watched. He was now in point-blank range of that 
deadly rifle, but he forgot his own danger in watching 
the singular, convulsive struggles of Gray Peter to gain 
his feet. Hal Dozier was up again; he ran to his horse, 
caught his head, and at the same moment the stallion 
grew suddenly limp. The weight of his head dragged 
the marshal down, and then Andrew saw that Dozier 
made no effort to rise again. ' 

He sat with the head of the horse in his lap, his own 
head buried in his hands, and Andrew knew then that 
Gray Peter was dead. 


CHAPTER XXXII 


^^THE INNER SHRINE'"' 

T he mare herself was in a far from safe condition. 

And if the marshal had roused himself from his 
grief and hurried up the slope on foot he would have 
found the fugitive out of the saddle and walking by the 
side of the played-out Sally, forcing her with slaps on 
the hip to keep in motion. She went on, stumbling, her 
head down, and the sound of her breathing was a hor¬ 
rible thing to hear. But she must keep in motion, for, 
if she stopped in this condition, Sally would never run 
again. 

Andrew forced her relentlessly on. At length her 
head came up a little and her breathing was easier and 
easier. Before dark that night he came on a deserted 
shanty, and there he took Sally under the shelter, and, 
tearing up the floor, he built a fire which dried them both. 
The following day he walked again, with Sally follow¬ 
ing like a dog at his heels. One day later he was in the 
saddle again, and Sally was herself once more. Give 
her one feed of grain, and she would have run again 
that famous race from beginning to end. 

But Andrew, stealing out of the Roydon mountains 
into the lower ground, had no thought of another race. 
He was among a district of many houses, many men, 
and, for the final stage of his journey, he waited until 
after dusk had come and then saddled Sally and can¬ 
tered into the valley. 

It was late on the fourth night after he left Los Toros 


“THE INNER SHRINE’ 


that Andrew came again to the house of John Merchant 
and left Sally in the very place among the trees where 
the pinto had stood before. There was no danger of dis¬ 
covery on his approach, for it was a wild night of wind 
and rain. The drizzling mists of the last three days had 
turned into a steady downpour, and rivers of water had 
been running from his slicker on the way to the ranch 
house. Now he put the slicker behind the saddle, and 
from the shelter of the trees surveyed the house. 

It was bursting with music and light; every moment 
or so automobiles, laboring through the mud, hummed up 
to the house or left it, bringing guests and taking them 
away; it must be the reception before the wedding. For 
some reason he had always imagined the house wrapped 
in black night as it was the time of his first coming, and 
it baffled him, this music, this noise, this radiance behind 
every wind. Sometimes the front door was opened and 
voices stole out to him; sometimes even through the 
closed door he heard the ghostly tinkling of some girl’s 
laughter. 

And that was to Andrew the most melancholy sound 
in the world. 

The rain, trickling even through the foliage of the 
evergreen, decided him to act at once. It might be that 
all the noise and light were, after all, an advantage to 
him, and, running close to the ground, he skulked across 
the dangerous open stretch and came into the safe shadow 
of the wall of the house. 

Once there, it was easy to go up to the roof by one 
of the rain pipes, the same low roof from which he had 
escaped on the time of his last visit. On the roof the 
rush and drumming of the rain quite covered any sound 
he made, but he was drenched before he reached the 
window of Anne’s room. Could he be sure that on her 


224 


FREE RANGE LANNING 


second visit she would have the same room? He set¬ 
tled that by a single glance. The curtain was not drawn, 
and a lamp, turned low, burned on the table beside the 
bed. The room was quite empty. The lamp reassured 
him, for the first person to enter the apartment would 
be sure to turn up the wick. 

The window was fastened, but he worked back the 
fastening iron with the blade of his knife and raised him¬ 
self into the room. He closed the window behind him. 
At once the noise of rain and the shouting of the wind 
faded off into a distance, and the voices of the house 
came more clearly to him. But he dared not stay to 
listen, for the water was dripping around him; he must 
move before a large dark spot showed on the carpet, and 
he saw, moreover, exactly where he could best hide. 
There was a heavily curtained alcove at one end of the 
room, and behind this shelter he hid himself. In case 
of a crisis the window was straight ahead of him; also, 
he could watch the door into the hall by pushing back the 
curtain. 

And here he waited. How would she come? Would 
there be some one with her? Would she come laughing, 
with all the triumph of the dance bright in her face? 

Behind him and about him he touched silken things, a 
mingling of fragrances reached him; apparently he had 
found the closet she used as a dressing room and every 
sight and scent—for a twilight came from the lamp and 
stole through above the curtain—spoke of Anne Withero 
and of her gentleness and all that nameless purity which 
he connected with her. He fell into a sort of sad-happy 
dream behind the curtain. Vaguely he heard the shrill 
droning of the violins die away beneath him, and the 
slipping of many dancing feet on a smooth floor fell to 
a whisper and then ceased. Voices sounded in the hall, 


“THE INNER SHRINE’ 


225 

but he gave no heed to the meaning of all this. Not 
even the squawking of horns, as automobiles drove away, 
conveyed any thought to him; he wished that this mo¬ 
ment could be suspended to an eternity. 

Parties of people were going down the hall; he heard 
soft flights of laughter and many young voices. People 
were calling gayly to one another and then by an inner 
sense rather than by a sound he knew that the door was 
opened into the room. He leaned and looked, and he 
saw Anne Withero close the door behind her and lean 
against it. In the joy of her triumph that evening? 

No, her head was fallen, and he saw the gleam of her 
hand at her breast. He could not see her face clearly, 
but the bent head spoke eloquently of defeat. , She came 
forward at length. 

Thinking of her as the reigning power in that dance 
and all the merriment below him, Andrew had been im¬ 
agining her tall, strong, with compelling eyes command¬ 
ing admiration. He found all at once that she was small, 
very small; and her hair was not that keen fire which 
he had pictured. It was simply a coppery glow, mar¬ 
velously delicate, molding her face. She went to a great 
full-length mirror; he had not seen it until her reflection 
suddenly flashed out at him- from it with a touch of dull- 
green fire at her throat. Was that a jewel? 

He had not time to see. She had raised her head for 
one instant to look at her image, and then she bowed her 
head again and placed her hand against the edge of the 
mirror for support. Little by little, through the half 
light, he was making her out and now the curve of this 
arm, from wrist to shoulder, went through Andrew like 
a phrase of music. He stepped out from behind the 
curtain, and, at the sound of the cloth swishing back into 
place, she whirled on him. 


226 


FREE RANGE FANNING 


If he could have had a picture of her as she stood 
there with the first fear parting her lips and darkening 
her eyes, I suppose that Andrew Fanning would have 
parted with the rest of Anne Withero with small pain 
indeed. 

“Fve come to do no harm,” he said hastily. ‘'Do not 
be afraid!” 

She was speechless; her raised hand did not fall; it 
was as if she were frozen where she stood. 

“I shall leave you at once,” said Andrew quietly, “if 
you are badly frightened. You have only to tell me.” 

He had come closer. Now he was astonished to see 
her turn swiftly toward the door and touch his arm with 
her hand. “Hush!” she said. “Hush! They may 
hear you!” 

She glided to the door into the hall and turned the 
lock softly and came to him again. 

It made Andrew weak to see her so close, and he 
searched her face with a hungry and jealous fear, lest 
she should be different from his dream of her. “You 
are the same,” he said with a sigh of relief. “And you 
are not afraid of me?” 

“Hush! Hush!” she repeated. “Afraid of you? 
Don’t you see that I’m happy, happy, happy to see you 
again ?” 

She drew him forward a little, and her hand touched 
his as she did so. She turned up the lamp, and a flood 
of strong yellow light went over the room, 

“But you have changed,” said Anne Withero with a 
little cry. “Oh, you have changed! What have they 
been doing to you?” 

He was dumb. Something cold that had been form¬ 
ing about his heart was breaking away and crumbling, 
and a strange warmth and weakness was coming in his 


‘THE INNER SHRINE’^ 22^ 

blood. She was answering her own question. “I know. 
They've been hounding you—the cowards!" 

“Does it make no difference to you—all that I’ye 
done ?” asked Andrew. 

“What is it that should make a difference?” 

“I have killed a man.” 

“Ah, it was that brother to the Dozier man. But I've 
learned about him. He was a bloodhound like his 
brother, but treacherous. I’ve learned everything about 
him, and people say it was a good thing that he died. 
Besides, it was in fair fight. Fair fight? It was one 
against six 1” 

“Don't,” said Andrew, breathing hard, “don't say 
that! You make me feel that it’s almost right to have 
done what I’ve done. But besides him—all the rest—do 
they make no difference ?” 

“All of what?” 

“People say things about me. They even print 
them.’' He winced as he spoke. 

But she was fierce again; her passion made her tremble. 

“When I think of it I” she murmured. “When I think 
of it, the rotten injustice makes me want to choke ’em 
all! Why, to-day I heard—I can’t repeat it. It makes 
me sick—sick! And you’re only a boy, Andrew Ban¬ 
ning !” 

It was a staggering blow. He was not altogether 
sure that he was glad to hear this statement. He made 
himself his full height. 

“Some people would smile if they heard you say that,” 
said Andrew. 

“If you draw yourself up like that again I'll laugh at 
you. Andrew Banning, I say, you're just a boy. You're 
not two years older than I am. Why, they’ve hounded 
you and bullied you until they’ve made you think you are 


228 


FREE RANGE LANNING 


bad, Andrew. They’ve even made you a little bit proud 
of the hard things people say about you. Isn’t that 
true ?” 

Was it any wonder that Andrew could not answer? 
He felt all at once so supple that he was hot tallow which 
those small fingers would mold and bend to suit them¬ 
selves. 

‘'Sit down here 1” she commanded. 

Meekly he obeyed. He sat on the edge of his chair, 
with his hat held with both hands, and his eyes widened 
as he stared at her—like a person coming out of a great 
darkness into a great light. 

And tears came into the eyes of the girl. 

“You’re as thin as a starved—wolf,” she said, and 
closed her eyes and shuddered. 

“And all the time I’ve been thinking of you as you 
were when I saw you here before—the same clear, steady 
eyes and the same direct smile. Oh, you see, I’ve never 
forgotten that night! What girl would? It was like 
something out of a play—but so mneh finer! But 
they’ve made you older—they’ve burned the boy out of . 
you with pain! And I’ve been thinking about you just' 
cantering through wild, gay adventures. Are you ill'J 
now ?” 

He had leaned back in the chair and gathered his hatl 
close to his breast, crushing it. ^ ■ ■■ 

“I’m not ill,” said Andrew. His voice was hoarse] 
and thick. “I’m just listening to you. Go on -^and] 
talk.” 

“About you ?” asked the girl. 

“I don’t hear your words—^hardly; I just hear the] 
sound you make.” He leaned forward again and cast] 
out his arm so that the palm of his hand was turned up] 
beneath her eyes. She could see the long, lean finger s.^ 








THE INNER SHRINE’ 


It suddenly c^e home to her that every strong man in 
the mountain desert was in deadly terror of that hand. 
Anne Withero was shaken for the first time, and her 
smile went out. 

‘‘Listen to me,’’ he was saying in that tense whisper 
which was oddly like the tremor of his hand, “I’ve been 
hungry for that voice all these weeks—and months— 
and thousands of years. Go on and talk!” 

“I’ll tell you what I’m going to do,” said the girl, very 
grave. “I’m going to break up this cowardly conspiracy 
against you. I’ve written to my father to get the finest 
lawyer in the land and send him out here to make you 
—legal—^again. Oh, I wrote a letter that’ll make dad’s 
blood boil! You’ll have to meet dad, Andrew Lanning.” 

He began to smile, and shook his head. 

“It’s no use,” he said. “Perhaps your lawyer could 
help me on account of Bill’s death, but he couldn’t help 
me from Hal.” 

“Are you—do you mean you’re going to fight the 
other man, too?” 

“He killed his horse chasing me,” said Andrew. “I 
couldn’t stop to fight him because I was cornin’ down 
here to see you. But when I go away I’ve got to find 
him and give him a chance back at me. It’s only fair.” 

“Because he killed a horse trying to get you you’re go¬ 
ing to give him a chance to shoot you?” 

Her voice had become shrill. She lowered it instinc¬ 
tively toward the end and cast a glance of apprehension 
toward the door. 

“You are quite mad,” said the girl. 

“You don’t understand,” said Andrew. “His horse 
was Gray Peter—the stallion.” 

The simple sentence seemed to mark the vast gulf of 
difference between them. She only stared at Andrew, 


230 


FREE RANGE FANNING 


and for the first time she grew aware of the fact that 
he was dripping on her carpet and that his clothes were 
tattered—remarkably ragged, in fact—^and that he was 
by no means clean. 

‘‘I’ve ridden Gray Peter myself,” went on Andrew. 
“And I would rather have killed a man than have seen 
Gray Peter die. Hal had Peter’s head in his arms,” he 
added softly. “And he’ll never give up the trail until 
he’s had it out with me. He wouldn’t be half a man if 
he let things drop now.” 

And she forgot the dripping, the ragged clothes, the 
dirt. In some manner she saw the whole picture of the 
death of Gray Peter in the saddened face of Andrew. 
If she had felt above him the moment before she now 
felt infinitely beneath him. 

“So you have to fight Hal Dozier ?” 

“Yes.” 

“But when that’s done-” 

“When that’s done one of us will be dead. If it’s me, 
of course, there’s no use worryin’; if it’s Hal, of course. 
I’m done in the eyes of the law. Two—murders!” 

His eyes glinted and his fingers quivered. It sent a 
cold thrill through the girl. 

“But they say he’s a terrible man, Andrew. You 
wouldn’t let him catch you?” 

“I won’t stand and wait for him,” said Andrew 
gravely. “But if we fight I think I’ll kill him.” 

It was said with perfect lack of braggadocio. 

“What makes you think that?” She was more curi¬ 
ous than shocked. 

“It’s just a sort of feeling that you get when you look 
at a man; either you’re his master or you aren’t. You 
see it in a flash.” 



“THE INNER SHRINE” 231 

“Have you ever seen your master?” asked the girl 
slowly. 

“I’ll want to die when I see that,” he said simply. 

Suddenly she clenched her hands and sat straight up. 

“It’s got to be stopped,” she said hotly. “It’s all non¬ 
sense, and I’m going to see that you’re both stopped.” 

“You can’t stop me.” 

She was not angry, but very curious. It was, in fact, 
difficult to be angry with a man who kept his eyes upon 
her with a look of mortal hunger, mortal stillness. 

“Of course,” she said, without smiling, “I’m not a 
fighting man.” 

It was as though, when words failed him, he relied 
upon a gesture to take their place. She followed the 
glint of his eyes and the movement of his hand, and 
was sorry she had made that last remark. Too late she 
knew she had precipitated the trouble. She would have 
stopped him, but it was like raising a hand to halt an 
avalanche. She felt lost, as though a horse had taken 
the bit in his teeth and was whirling her on into dan¬ 
ger, out of control. The emotion which had been in the 
quivering gesture of his hand and in the glint of his 
eyes was stamped freely on his whole face now. It was 
in his pallor, in the deep lines beside the mouth, in his 
very deep breathing, and, above all, it flowed into the 
quality of his voice, which did not rise in pitch or in vol¬ 
ume, but which took on a peculiar edge—something that 
went to her heart. 

“Four days ago,” he said, “you could have taken me 
in the hollow of your hand. I would have come to you 
and gone from you at a nod. That time is about to 
end.” 

He paused a little, and looked at her in such a man¬ 
ner that she was frightened, but it was a pleasant fear. 


FREE RANGE FANNING 


232 

It made her interlace her fingers with nervous anxiety, 
but it set a fire in her eyes. 

“That time is ending/’ said Andrew. “You are about 
to be married.” ' 

“And after that you will never look at me again, never 
think of me again?” 

“I hope not,” he answered. “I strongly hope not. I 
shall make myself busy with that purpose.” 

“But why? Is a marriage a blot or a stain?” 

“It is a barrier,” he answered. 

^‘Even to thoughts? Even to friendship?” 

“Yes.” 

A very strange thing happened in the excited mind of 
Anne Withero. It seemed to her that Charles Mer¬ 
chant sat, a filmy ghost, beside this tattered fugitive. 
He was speaking the same words that Andrew spoke, 
but his voice and his manner were to Andrew Fanning 
what moonshine is to sunlight. She had looked upon 
marriage simply as an acquisition, a gain, an inevitable 
event toward which all womankind must move. And 
now a new point of view was opened to her, and she 
saw marriage as a bitter loss, a great gain and a great 
sacrifice, a chance for joy and a certainty for aching 
sorrow, an inevitable trial by fire to which all woman¬ 
kind moves. She had been thinking of Charles Mer¬ 
chant as a social asset; she began to think of him now 
as a possessing force. Anne Withero possessed by 
Charlie Merchant! A faded smile came and went on 
her lips. ' 

“What you have told me,” she said, “means more than 
you may think to me. Have you come all this distance 
to tell me ?” 

“All this distance to talk?” he said. He seemed to 
sit back and wonder. “Have I traveled four days?” he 


“THE INNER SHRINE” 


233 

went on. ‘‘Has Gray Peter died, and have I been under 
Hal Dozier’s rifle only to speak to you?” He suddenly 
recalled himself. 

“No, no! I have come to give you a wedding pres¬ 
ent.” 

He watched her color change. 

“Are you angry? Is it wrong to give you a present?” 

“No,” she answered in a singular, stifled voice. 

“It is this watch.” It was a large gold watch and a 
chain of very old make that he put into her hand. “It 
is for your son,” said Andrew. 

She stood up; he rose instinctively. 

“When I look at it I’m to remember that you are for¬ 
getting me?” 

A little hush fell upon them. 

“Are you laughing at me, Anne?” 

He had never called her by her name before, and yet 
it came as naturally upon his lips as a child’s name, say, 
comes upon the tongue of its playmate. 

She stood, indeed, with the same smile upon her lips, 
but her eyes were fixed and looked straight past him. 
They were dim and obscured by moisture. And pres¬ 
ently he saw a tear pass slowly down her face. Her 
hand remained without moving, with the watch in it 
exactly as he had placed it there. A great awe came 
upon Andrew. All before he had felt that he was the 
master with the upper hand while they talked together. 

But now she wept, and his heart was humbled. It 
shocked him and crushed him with a feeling that in her 
were motives so deeply drawn, flowing from sources so 
remote that he could never have understood her even if 
she vrere to speak. All that mysterious power which is 
womanhood came upon him and about him like still and 
holy things—the whisper of rain in the evening when 


FREE RANGE FANNING 


234 

it is easiest to die, the pure and melancholy cold of 
autumn, the fragrance of a garden passed unknown in 
the night. 

It became impossible for him to bear the sight of her 
eyes. If he remained she might speak, and he feared to 
hear her. A sense of a third presence, of another soul 
in the room overwhelmed him; he could not give it a 
name, and therefore he called it God. 

She had not stirred when he slipped without a noise 
through the window and was instantly swallowed in the 
rushing of the wind and rain. 


CHAPTER XXXIII 


BESS BALDWIN 

T here was, as Andrew had understood for a long 
time, a sort of underground world of criminals even 
here on the mountain desert. Otherwise the criminals 
could not have existed for even a moment in the face 
of the organized strength of lawful society. Several 
times in the course of his wanderings Andrew had come 
in contact with links of the underground chain, and he 
learned what every fugitive learns—the safe, stopping 
points in the great circuit of his flight. 

Three elements went into the making of that hidden 
society. There was first of all the circulating and active 
part, and this was composed of men actually known to 
be under the ban of the law and openly defying it. It 
was the smallest component part of the whole, and yet 
it was the part with which law-abiding society occupied 
itself mostly. Beneath this active group lay a stratum 
much larger which served as a base for the operating 
criminals. This stratum was built entirely of men who 
had at one time been incriminated in shady dealings of 
one sort and another. It included lawbreakers from every 
part of the world, men who had fled first of all to the 
shelter of the mountain desert and who had lived there 
until their past was even forgotten in the lands from 
which they came. But they had never lost the inevi¬ 
table sympathy for their more active fellows, and in this 
class there was included a meaner element—^men who 
had in the past committed crimes in the mountain desert 


FREE RANGE FANNING 


236 

itself and who, from time to time, when they saw an 
absolutely safe opportunity, were perfectly ready and 
willing to sin again. 

The third and largest of all the elements in the crimi¬ 
nal world of the desert was a shifting and changing class 
of men who might be called the paid adherents of the 
active order. The ‘‘long riders,’^ acting in groups or 
singly, fled after the commission of a crime and were 
forced to find places of rest and concealment along their 
journey. Under this grave necessity they quickly learned 
what people on their way could be hired as hosts and 
whose silence and passive aid could be bought. Such 
men were secured in the first place by handsome bribes. 
And very often they joined the ranks unwillingly. But 
when some peaceful householder was confronted by a 
desperate man, armed, on a weary horse—^perhaps stained 
from a wound—^the householder was by no means ready 
to challenge the man’s right to hospitality. He never 
knew when the stranger would take by force what was 
refused to him freely, and, if the lawbreaker took by 
force, he was apt to cover his trail by a fresh killing. 

Of course, such killings took place only when the “long 
rider” was a desperate brute rather than a man, but 
enough of them had occurred to call up vivid examples 
to every householder who was accosted. As a rule he 
submitted to receive the unwelcome guest. Also, as a 
rule, he was weak enough to accept a gift when the 
stranger parted. Once such a gift was taken, he was 
lost. His name was instantly passed on by the fugitive 
to his fellows as a “safe” man; other “long riders” were 
sure to come to his door quietly and ask shelter or food 
or some trifle in equipment. They always paid hand¬ 
somely for what they received, and if they had to take 
on credit they were certain to pay doubly when they 


BESS BALDWIN 


237 

were again in funds. It was a point of honor. And 
so the innocent householder, drawn into the underground 
circle by force and retained there by bribes, was kept in 
the new world. Once fairly in, he could not withdraw. 
Before long he became, against or with his will, a deposi¬ 
tory of secrets—banned faces became known to him. 
And if he suddenly decided to withdraw from that crimi¬ 
nal world his case was most precarious. 

The '‘long riders” admitted no neutrals. If a man 
had once been with them he could only leave them to be¬ 
come an enemy. He became open prey. His name was 
published abroad. Then his cattle were apt to disap¬ 
pear. His stacks of hay might catch fire unexpectedly 
at night. His house itself might be plundered, and, in 
not infrequent cases, the man himself was brutally mur¬ 
dered. .It was part of a code no less binding because it 
was unwritten. 

All of this Andrew was more or less aware of, and 
scores of names had been mentioned to him by chance 
acquaintances of "the road.” Such names he stored 
away, for he had always felt that time impending of 
which Henry Allister had warned him, the time when he 
must openly forget his scruples and take to a career of 
crime. That time, he now knew, was come upon him. 

It would be misrepresenting Andrew to say that he 
shrank from the future. Rather he accepted it with a 
fierce joy. It offered him a swift life of action, an all- 
absorbing career, a chance for forgetfulness of the one 
thing that had until now, held him back with a meager 
leash. He accepted everything that lay before him 
whole-heartedly, and, with the laying aside of his scru¬ 
ples, there was an instant lightening of the heart, a fierce 
keenness of mind, a contempt for society, a disregard for 
life beginning with his own. One could have noted it 


FREE RANGE FANNING 


238 

in the recklessness with which he sent Sally up the slope 
away from the ranch house this night. 

He had made up his mind immediately to hunt out a 
“safe” man, recently mentioned to him by that uncon¬ 
scionable scapegrace Harry Woods, crooked gambler, 
thief of small and large, and whilom murderer. The 
man’s name was Garry Baldwin, a small rancher, some 
half day’s ride above Sullivan’s place in the valley. He 
was recommended as a man of silence. In that direc¬ 
tion Andrew took his way, but, coming in the hills to a 
dished-out place on a hillside, where there was a natu¬ 
ral shelter from both wind and rain, he stopped there 
for the rest of the night, cooked a meal, rolled himself 
in his blankets, and slept into the gray of the morning. 

No sooner was the first light streaking the horizon to 
the east than Andrew wakened, and wakened in instant 
possession of all his faculties; he had gained a Napole¬ 
onic power to take his sleep whenever and wherever he 
chose, and wake refreshed and ready for a new start. 
He could sleep as a camel eats. If opportunity offered 
he could spend a dozen hours wrapped in oblivion and 
then go forty-eight hours freshly without a new rest. 
Of all the rare qualities of hand and eye and mind which 
equipped Andrew Tanning for his hard life, there was 
nothing half so valuable as this command over sleep. 
The heartbreaking ride from Los Toros, which would 
have reduced another man to a tangle of nerves and 
weariness, left him as fresh as a bird. One sleep was 
all he needed to wipe his mind clean as a. slate of the 
past. 

He saddled Sally this morning, and, after a leisurely 
breakfast, started at a jog trot through the hills, taking 
the upslope with the utmost care. For nothing so ruins 
a horse as hard work uphill at the very beginning of the 


BESS BALDWIN 


239 

day. He gave Sally her head, and she went along in her 
own capricious manner, walking at a snail’s pace here, 
trotting there, breaking into a gallop now and again to 
stretch her muscles, and on the whole behaving like some 
irresponsible boy turned loose for the first time on the 
road. But by letting her go as she pleased she topped 
the divide, breathing as easily as if she had been walking 
on the flat; she gave one toss of her head as she saw 
the long, smooth slope ahead of her, breaking into a 
tumble of rolling ground beyond, and then, without a 
word from Andrew or a touch of his heels, she gave 
herself up to the long, rocking canter which she could 
maintain so tirelessly for hour on hour. 

A clear, cold morning came on; the wind, changing 
from southwest to north, whipped the sky clear in a few 
moments; a rout of clouds piled away in storage to the 
south, and the sun came over the tips of the eastern 
mountains, dazzling bright and without a particle of 
warmth. Indeed, it was rarely chill for the mountain 
desert, with a feel of coming snow in the wind. Sally 
pricked one ear as she looked into the north, and Andrew; 
knew that that was a sign of trouble coming. 

He came in the middle of the morning to the house of 
Garry Baldwin. It was a wretched shack, the roof 
sagged in the middle, and the building had been held 
from literally falling apart by bolting an iron rod through 
the length of it. 

A woman who fitted well into such a background 
kicked open the door and looked up to Andrew with 
the dishwater still dripping from her red hands. He 
asked for her husband. He was gone from the house. 
Where, she did not know. Somewhere yonder, and her 
gesture included half the width of the horizon to the 
west. There was his trail, if Andrew wished to follow 


240 


FREE RANGE FANNING 


it. For her part, she was busy and could not spare time 
to gossip. At that she stepped back and kicked the door 
shut with a slam that set the whole side of the shack 
shivering. 

At that moment Andrew wondered what he would 
have done those few months—those few lifetimes—when 
he lived in Martindale if he had been treated in such a 
manner. He would have crimsoned to the eyes, no 
doubt, and fled from the virago. But now he felt neither 
embarrassment nor fear nor anger. He drew his re¬ 
volver, and with the heavy butt banged loudly on the 
door. It left three deep dents in the wood, and the door 
was kicked open again. But this time he saw only the 
foot of the woman clad in a man’s boot. The door re¬ 
mained open, but the hostess kept out of view. 

‘‘You be ridin’ on, friend,” she called in her harsh 
voice. “Bud, keep out’n the kitchen. Stranger, you be 
ridin’ on. I don’t know you and I don’t want to know 
you. A man that beats on doors with his gun!” 

Andrew laughed, and the sound brought her into view, 
a furious face, but a curious face as well. She carried 
a long rifle slung easily under her stout arm. There 
was the strength of a man in her shoulders and the readi¬ 
ness of a man about her hands. 

“What d’you want with Garry?” she asked. 

And he replied with a voice equally hard: “I want 
direction for finding ‘Scar-faced’ Allister.” 

He watched that shot shake her. 

“You do? You got a hell of a nerve askin’ around 
here for Allister! Slope, kid, slope. You’re on a cold 
trail.” 

“Wait a minute,” protested Andrew. “You need an¬ 
other look at me.” 


BESS BALDWIN 


241 

‘‘I can see all there is to you the first glance,” said the 
woman calmly. “Why should I look again?” 

“To see the reward,” said Andrew bitterly. He 
laughed again. ‘Tm Andrew Banning. Ever hear of 
me ?” 

It was obvious that she had. She blinked and winced 
as though the name stunned her. “Banning I” she said. 
“Why, you ain't much more’n a kid. Banning! And 
you're him?” 

All at once she melted. 

“Slide off your boss and come in, Andy,” she said. 
“Dogged if I knew you at all!” 

“Thanks. I want to find Allister and Tm in a hurry.” 

“So you and him are goin' to team it? That’ll be 
high times! Come here, Bud. Look at Andy. Banning. 
That's him on the horse right before you.” 

A scared, round face peered out at Andrew from be¬ 
hind his mother. “All right, partner. I'll tell you where 
to find him pretty close. He’ll be up the gulch along 
about now. You know the old shack up there? You 
can get to him inside three hours—with that boss.” She 
stopped and eyed Sally. “Is that the one that run Gray 
Peter to death ? She don’t look the part, but them long, 
low bosses is deceivin'. Can't you stay, Andy? Well, 
s’long. And give Allister a good word from Bess Bald¬ 
win. Luck!” 

He waved, and was gone at a brisk gallop. 


CHAPTER XXXIV 


THE RULES OF THE GAME 

I T was not yet noon when he entered the gulch. The 
sun, though it was almost directly at the zenith, gave 
but a mild warmth, and all the ravine was full of that 
hushing sound which comes after a heavy rain, when 
the earth is drinking the water out of a myriad little 
pools. There was no creek bed in the canon, but an 
impromptu rivulet was now running down over the 
gravel, winding foolishly into blind pools and cutting a 
crazy, ragged path down to the mouth of the gulch. It 
kept a faint tinkling sound over the murmur of the soak¬ 
ing water—two whispers, one barely louder than the 
other, and both making Andrew merely feel the weight 
of the silence. 

He was not halfway up the gulch when something 
moved at the top of the high wall to his right. He 
guessed at once that it was a lookout signaling the main 
party of the approach of a stranger, so Andrew stopped 
Sally with a word and held his hand high above his head, 
facing the point from which he had seen the movement. 
There was a considerable pause; then a man showed on 
the top of the cliff, and Andrew recognized Jeff Rankin 
by his red hair. Yet they were at too great a distance 
for conversation, and after waving a greeting, Rankin 
merely beckoned Andrew on his way up the valley. 
Around the very next bend of the ravine he found the 
camp. It was of the most impromptu character, and the 
warning of Rankin had caused them to break it up pre- 


THE RULES OF THE GAME 


243 

cipitately, as Andrew could see by one length of tar¬ 
paulin tossed, without folding, over a saddle. Each of 
the four was ready, beside his horse, for flight or for 
attack, as their outlook on the cliff should give signal. 
But at sight of Andrew and the bay mare a murmur, 
then a growl of interest went among them. Even Larry 
la Roche grinned a skull-like welcome, and Henry Allis- 
ter actually ran forward to receive the newcomer. An¬ 
drew dropped out of the saddle and shook hands with 
him. 

‘T’ve done as you said I would,’" said Andrew. ‘T’ve 
run in a circle, Allister, and now I’m back to make one 
of you, if you still want me.” 

Allister, laughing joyously, turned to the other three 
and repeated the question to them. There was only one 
voice in answer. 

‘‘Want you ?” said Allister, and his smile made Andrew 
almost forget the scar which twisted the otherwise hand¬ 
some face. “Want you? Why, man, if we’ve been be¬ 
yond the law up to this time, we can laugh at the law 
now. You’re worth a host, Lanning. As soon as it’s 
known you’re with me, the bumpkins will want a hun¬ 
dred men before they take our trails. Sit down. Hey, 
Scottie, shake up the fire and put on some coffee, will 
you? We’ll take an hour off.” 

Larry la Roche was observed to make a dour face. 

“Who’ll tell me it’s lucky,” he said, “to have a gent 
that starts out by makin’ us all stop on the trail? Is 
that a good sign ?” 

But Scottie, with laughter, hushed him. Yet Larry 
la Roche remained of all the rest quite silent during the 
making of the coffee and the drinking of it. The others 
kept up a running fire of comments and questions, but 
Larry la Roche, as though he had never forgiven An- 


FREE RANGE FANNING 


244 

drew for their first quarrel, remained with his long, bony 
chin dropped upon his breast and followed the movements 
of Andrew Fanning with restless eyes. 

The others were glad to see him, as Andrew could tell 
at a glance, but also they were a bit troubled, and by de¬ 
grees he made out the reason. Strange as it seemed, they 
regretted that he had not been able to make his break 
across the mountains. His presence made them more 
impregnable than they had ever been under the indomi¬ 
table Allister, and yet, more than the aid of his fighting 
hand, they would have welcomed the tidings of a man 
who had broken away from the shadow of the law and 
‘^made good.'^ It was the first time that Andrew ob¬ 
served this quality among the outlaws; yet he learned 
later that even the tramps of the cross-continental road 
do not welcome recruits to their ranks. Once a man has 
taken the long step that places him beyond the reach of 
good society, he is received with open arms, but as long 
as there is a chance of putting him back on his feet again 
there are few, indeed, that will not contribute money 
and cunning to that purpose. There is, of course, a 
shade of selfishness in it. For each of the fallen wishes 
to feel that his exile is self-terminable, and the most noto¬ 
rious criminal will thrill to a story of regeneration. 

And therefore Andrew, telling his story to them in 
brief, found that they were not by any means filled with 
unmixed pleasure. Joe Clune, with his bright brown 
hair of youth and his lined, haggard face of worn mid¬ 
dle age, summed up their sentiments at the end of An¬ 
drew’s story: “You’re what we need with us. Fanning. 
You and Allister will beat the world, and it means high 
times for the rest of us, but God pity you—^that’s all 1” 

The pause that followed this solemn speech was to 


THE RULES OF THE GAME 


245 

Andrew like an amen. He glanced from face to face, 
and each stern eye met his in gloomy sympathy. 

Then something shot through him which was to his 
mind what red is to the eye; it was a searing touch of 
reckless indifference, defiance. 

‘‘Forget this prayer-meeting talk,” said Andrew. “I 
came up here for action, not mourning. I want some¬ 
thing to do with my hands, not something to think about 
with my head!” 

Something to think about! It was like a terror be¬ 
hind him. If he should have long quiet it would steal 
on him and look at him over his shoulder like a face. 
A little of this showed in his face; enough to make the 
circle flash significant glances at one another. 

“You got something behind you, Andy,” said Scottie. 
“Come out with it. It ain’t too bad for us to hear.” 

“There’s something behind me,” said Andrew. “It’s 
the one really decent part of my life. And I don’t want 
to think about it. Allister, they say you never let the 
grass grow under you. What’s on your hands now?” 

“Somebody has been flattering me,” said the leader 
quietly, and all the time he kept studying the face of 
Andrew. “We have a little game ahead, if you want 
to come in on it. We’re shorthanded, but I’d try it with 
you. That makes us six all told. Six enough, boys?” 

“Count me half of one,” said Larry la Roche. “I 
don’t feel lucky about this little party.” 

“We’ll count you two times two,” replied the leader 
calmly, and he began to outline his plans to Andrew. 

It developed, before he had been talking for five min¬ 
utes, that the plans were as extraordinary as the man 
himself. He treated crime as any progressive business 
man treats his business. He looked upon himself and 
his small band as a great capital investment, on which 


FREE RANGE FANNING 


246 

the money they secured was the interest. And accord¬ 
ingly he seldom risked the band in action. 

“Tempt Providence once too much and the best-laid 
plan in the world will break down/^ he said, “as long as 
the other side has the same caliber guns we have. Who 
is the winning gambler? Jeff Rankin, who plunges 
every time he sees a three of a kind, or Larry there, who 
plunges once in an evening for everything he has? He 
makes more in that plunge than Jeff Rankin makes in a 
month’s play. It’s the same with this business of mine, 
Fanning. I show my hand once in every six or eight 
months, but when I strike I strike hard and I strike for 
big stakes.” 

He added: “You boys play a game; I’m going to 
break in Fanning to our job.” 

Taking his horse, he and Andrew rode at a walk up 
the ravine. On the way the leader explained his sys¬ 
tem briefly and clearly. Told in short, he worked some¬ 
what as follows: Instead of raiding blindly right and 
left, he only moved when he had planned every inch of 
ground for the advance and the blow and the retreat. 
To make sure of success and the size of his stakes he was 
willing to invest heavily. 

“Big business men sink half a yeaPs income in their 
advertising. I do the same.” 

It was not public advertising; it was money cunningly 
expended where it would do most good. Fifty per cent 
of the money the gang earned was laid away to make 
future returns surer. In twenty places Allister had his 
paid men who, working from behind the scenes, gained 
priceless information and sent word of it to the outlaw. 
Trusted officials in great companies were in communica¬ 
tion with him. When large shipments of gold were to 
be made, for instance, he was often warned beforehand. 


THE RULES OF THE GAME 


247 

Every dollar of the consignment was known to him, the 
date of its shipment, its route, and the hands to which 
it was supposed to fall. Or, again, in many a bank and 
prosperous mercantile firm in the mountain desert he 
had inserted his paid spies, who let him know when the 
safe was crammed with cash and when the way would 
be fairly open and by what means the treasure was 
guarded. 

Not until he had secured such information did the 
leader move. And he still delayed until every possible 
point of friction had been noted, every danger considered, 
and a check appointed for it, every method of advance 
and retreat gone over. 

^^A good general,’’ Allister was fond of saying, ^'plans 
in two ways: for an absolute victory and for an abso¬ 
lute defeat. The one enables him to squeeze the last 
ounce of success out of a triumph; the other keeps a 
failure from turning into a catastrophe.” 

With everything arranged for the stroke, he usually 
posted himself with the band as far as possible from the 
place where the actual work was to be done. Then he 
made a feint in the opposite direction—^he showed him¬ 
self or a part of his gang recklessly. The moment the 
alarm was given—even at the risk of having an entire 
hostile countryside around him—he started a whirlwind 
course in the opposite direction from which he was gen¬ 
erally supposed to be traveling. If possible, at the 
ranches of adherents, or at out-of-the-way places where 
confederates could act, he secured fresh horses and 
dashed on at full speed all the way. 

Then, at the very verge of the place for attack, he 
gathered his men, rehearsed in detail what each man was 
to do, delivered the blow, secured the spoils, and each 
man of the party split away from the others and fled in 


FREE RANGE FANNING 


248 

scattering directions, to assemble again at a distant point 
on a comparatively distant date. There they sat down 
around a council table, and there they divided the spoils. 
No matter how many were employed, no matter how 
vast a proportion of the danger and scheming had been 
borne by the leader, he took no more than two shares. 
Then fifty per cent of the prize was set aside. The rest 
was divided with an exact care among the remaining 
members of the gang. The people who had supplied the 
requisite information for the coup were always given 
their share. If anything happened to them, if their de¬ 
ceit was discovered, their heirs received every scruple of 
the money. More than that, excellent sources of infor¬ 
mation were kept “fattened’’ with bribes even when they 
were turning in no useful news. One man had only 
sent in two short bits of advice in three years, but each 
of those notes had meant many thousands of dollars. 

From this general talk Allister descended to particu¬ 
lars. He talked of the gang itself. They were quite a 
fixed quantity. In the last half dozen years there had 
not been three casualties. For one thing, he chose his 
men with infinite care; in the second place, he saw to it 
that they remained in harmony, and to that end he was 
careful never to be tempted into forming an unwieldy 
crew, no matter how large the prize. Of the present 
organization each was an expert. Larry la Roche had 
been a counterfeiter and was a consummate penman. 
His forgeries were works of art. “Have you noticed 
his hands?” 

“Scottie” Macdougal was an eminent advance agent, 
whose smooth tongue was the thing for the very dan¬ 
gerous and extremely important work of trying out new 
sources of information, noting the dependability of those 
sources, and understanding just how far and in what line 


THE RULES OF THE GAME 


249 

the tools could be used. Joe Clune was a past expert in 
the blowing of safes; not only did he know everything 
that was to be known about means of guarding money 
and how to circumvent them, but he was an artist with 
the “soup,'' as Allister called nitroglycerin. 

Jeff Rankin, without a mental equipment to compare 
with his companions, was often invaluable on account of 
his prodigious strength. Under the strain of his mus¬ 
cles iron bars bent like hot wax. In addition he had 
more than his share of an ability which all the members 
of the gang possessed—an infinite cunning in the use of 
weapons and a star-storming courage and self-confidence. 

“And where," said Andrew at the end of this long 
recital, “do I fit in ?" ' 

“You begin," said Allister, “as the least valuable of 
my men; before six months you will be worth the whole 
set of 'em. You'll start as my lieutenant, Lanning. 
The boys expect it. You’ve built up a reputation that 
counts. They admit your superiority without question. 
Larry la Roche squirms under the weight of it, but he 
admits it like the rest of 'em. In a pinch they would 
obey you nearly as well as they obey me. It means 
that, having you to take charge, I can do what I’ve al¬ 
ways wanted to do—I can give the main body the slip 
and go off for advance-guard and rear-guard duty. I 
don’t dare to do it now. 

“Do you know why? Those fellows yonder, who 
seem so chummy, would be at each other’s throats in 
ten seconds if I weren’t around to keep them in order, 
I know why you're here, Lanning. It isn’t the money. 
It's the cursed fear of loneliness and the fear of having 
time to think. You want action, action to fill your mind 
and blind you. That's what I offer you. You're the 
keeper of the four wild cats you see over there. You 


FREE RANGE FANNING 


250 

start in with their respect. Let them lose their fear oi 
you for a moment and they’ll go for you. Treat them 
like men; think of them as wild beasts. That’s what 
they are. The minute they know you’re without your 
whip they go for you like tigers at a wounded trainer. 
One taste of meat is all they need to madden them. It’s 
different with me. I’m wild, too.” 

His eyes gleamed at Andrew. 

‘‘And, if they raise you, I think they’ll find you’ve 
more iron hidden away in you than I have. But the 
way they’ll find it out will be in an explosion that will 
wipe them out. You’ve got to handle them without that 
explosion. Fanning. Can you do it?” 

The younger man moistened his lips. “I think this 
job is going to prove worth while,” he returned. 

“Very well, then. But there are penalties in your new 
position. In a pinch you’ve got to do what I do—see 
that they have food enough—go without sleep if one of 
them needs your blankets—if any of ’em gets in trou¬ 
ble, even into a jail, you’ve got to get him out.” 

“Better still,” smiled Andrew. 

“And now,” said the leader, “I’ll tell you about our 
next job as we go back to the boys.” 


CHAPTER XXXV 


THE HOLDUP 

I T was ten days later when the band dropped out of the 
mountains into the Murchison Pass —a singular place 
for a train robbery, Andrew could not help thinking. 
They were at the southwestern end of the pass, where 
the mountains gave back in a broad gap. Below them, 
not five miles away, was the city of Gidding Creek; they 
could see its buildings and parks tumbled over a big area, 
for there was a full twenty-five thousand of inhabitants 
in Gidding Creek. Indeed, the whole country was dot¬ 
ted with villages and towns, for it was no longer a cattle 
region, but a semi farming district cut up into small tracts. 
One was almost never out of sight of at least one house. 

It worried Andrew, this closely built country, and he 
knew that it worried the other men as well; yet there 
had not been a single murmur from among them as they 
jogged their horses on behind Allister. Each of them 
was swathed from head to heels in a vast slicker that 
spread behind, when the wind caught it, as far as the tail 
of the horse. And the rubber creaked and rustled softly. 
Whatever they might have been inclined to think of this 
daring raid into the heart of a comparatively thickly 
populated country, they were too accustomed to let the 
leader do their thinking for them to argue the point with 
him. And Andrew followed blindly enough. He saw, 
indeed, one strong point in their favor. The very fact 
that the train was coming out of the heart of the moun¬ 
tains, through ravines which afforded a thousand places 


FREE RANGE FANNING 


252 

for assault, would make the guards relax their attention 
as they approached Gidding Creek. And, though there 
were many people in the region, they were a fat and 
inactive populace, not comparable with the lean fellows 
of the north. 

There was bitter work behind them. Ten days be¬ 
fore they had made a feint to the north of Martindale 
that was certain to bring out Hal Dozier; then they dou¬ 
bled about and had plodded steadily south, choosing 
always the most desolate ground for their travel. There 
had been two changes of horses for the others, but An¬ 
drew kept to Sally. To her that journey was play after 
the labor she had passed through before; the iron dust 
of danger and labor was in her even as it was in Andrew. 
Three in all that party were fresh at the end of the long 
trail. They were Allister, Sally, and Andrew. The 
others were poisoned with weariness, and their tempers 
were on edge; they kept an ugly silence, and if one of 
them happened to jostle the horse of the other, there was 
a flash of teeth and eyes—a silent warning. The sixth 
man was Scottie, who had long since been detached from 
the party. His task was one which, if he failed in it, 
would make all that long ride go for nothing. He was 
to take the train far up, ride down as “blind baggage” to 
the Murchison Pass, and then climb over the tender into 
the cab, “stick up” the fireman and the engineer, and 
make them bring the engine to a halt at the mouth of the 
pass, with Gidding Creek and safety for all that train 
only five minutes away. There was a touch of the 
Satanic in this that pleased Andrew and made Allister 
show his teeth in self-appreciation. 

So perfectly had their journey been timed that the 
train was due in a very few minutes. They disposed 
their horses in the thicket, and then went back to take up 


THE HOLDUP 


253 

their position in the ambush. The plan of work was 
carefully divided. To Jeff Rankin, that nicely accurate 
shot and bulldog fighter, fell what seemed to be a full 
half of the total risk and labor. He was to go to the 
“blind’’ ^ide of the job. In other words, he was to 
guard the opposite side of the train to that on which the 
main body advanced. It was always possible that when 
a train was held up the passengers—at least the unarmed 
portion, and perhaps even? some of the armed men— 
would break away on the least threatened side. Jeff 
Rankin on that blind side was to turn them back with a 
hurricane of bullets from his magazine rifle. Firing 
from ambush and moving from place to place, he would 
seem more than one man. Probably three or four shots 
would turn back the mob. In the meantime, having 
made the engineer and fireman stop the train, Scottie 
would be making them continue to flood the fire Fox. 
This would delay the start of the engine on its way and 
gain precious moments for the fugitives. Two of the 
band would be thus employed while Larry la Roche went 
through the train and “turned out” the passengers. 
There was no one like Larry for facing a crowd and 
cowing it. His spectral form, his eyes burning through 
the holes in his mask, stripped them of any idea of re¬ 
sistance. And to aid him there was always the impres¬ 
sion that this one robber was only a prelude to the scores 
surrounding the train on the outside. Even if he were 
shot down there would be no hope; it might simply bring 
on a general massacre. 

While the crowd turned out, Andrew, standing oppo¬ 
site the middle of the train, rifle in hand, would line them 
up, while Allister and Joe Clune attended to overpower¬ 
ing the guards of the safe, and Larry la Roche came out 
and “went through” the line of passengers for personal 


254 


FREE RANGE FANNING 


valuables, and Clune and Allister fixed the '^soup’^ to 
blow the safe. Last of all, there was the explosion, the 
carrying off of the coin in its canvas sacks to the horses. 
Each man was to turn his horse in a direction carefully 
specified, and, riding in a roundabout manner, which was 
also named, he was to keep on until he came, five days 
later, to a deserted, ruinous shack far up in the mountains 
on the side of the Twin Eagles peaks. 

These were the instructions which Allister went over 
carefully with each member of his crew before they went 
to their posts. There had been twenty rehearsals be¬ 
fore, and each man was letter perfect. They took their 
posts, and Allister came to the side of Andrew among 
the trees. 

^‘How are you ?” he asked. 

‘^Scared to death,’’ said Andrew truthfully. ‘T’d give 
a thousand dollars, if I had it, to be free of this job.” 

Andrew saw that hard glint come in the eyes of the 
leader. 

''You’ll do—later,” nodded Allister. "But keep back 
from the crowd. Don’t let them see you get nervous 
when they turn out of the coaches. If you show a sign 
of wavering they might start something. Of course, if 
they did, I know that you’d come through in great style 
in the fight, but the thing to do with a crowd is to keep 
’em from ever starting to fight. Once they make a surge, 
shooting won’t stop ’em.” 

Andrew nodded. There was more practical advice on 
the heels of this. Then they stood quietly and waited. 

For days and days a northeaster had been blowing; it 
had whipped little drifts of rain and mist that stung the 
face and sent a chill to the bone, and, though there had 
been no actual downpour, the cold and the wet had never 
broken since the journey started. Now the wind came 


THE HOLDUP 


255 

like a wolf down the Murchison Pass, howling and moan¬ 
ing. Andrew, closing his eyes, felt that the whole thing 
was dreamlike. Presently he would open his eyes and 
find himself back beside the fire in the house of Uncle 
Jasper, with the old man prodding his shoulder and tell¬ 
ing him that it was bedtime. When he opened his eyes, 
in fact, they fell upon a solitary pine high up on the 
opposite slope, above the thicket where Jeff Rankin was 
hiding. It was a sickly tree, half naked of branches, 
and it shivered like a wretched animal in the wind. Then 
a new sound came down the pass, wolf like, indeed; it was 
repeated more clearly—the whistle of a train. 

It was the signal arranged among them for putting 
on the masks, and Andrew hastily adjusted his. 

‘‘Did you hear that ?” asked Allister as the train hooted 
in the distance again. 

Andrew turned and started at the ghostly thing which 
had been the face of the outlaw a moment before; he 
himself must look like that, he knew. 

“What?’’he asked. 

“That voicelike whistle,” said Allister. “There’s no 
luck in this day—for me.” 

“You’ve listened to Larry la Roche too much,” said 
Andrew. “He’s been growling ever since we started on 
this trail.” 

“No, no!” returned Allister. “It’s another thing, an 
older thing than Larry la Roche. My mother-” 

He stopped. Whatever it was that he was about to 
say, Andrew was never to hear it. The train had turned 
the long bend above, and now the roar of its wheels 
filled the canon and covered the sound of the wind. 

It looked vast as a mountain as it came, rocking per¬ 
ceptibly on the uneven roadbed. It rounded the curve, 
the tail of the train flicked around, and it shot at full 



FREE RANGE LANNING 


256 

speed straight for the mouth of the pass. How could 
one man stop it? How could five men attack it after it 
was stopped? It was like trying to storm a medieval 
fortress with a popgun. 

The great black front of the engine came rocking to¬ 
ward them, gathering impetus on the sharp grade. Had 
Scottie missed his trick? But when the thunder of the 
iron on iron was deafening Andrew, and the engine 
seemed almost upon them, there was a cloud of white 
vapor that burst out on either side of it and a great whis¬ 
tling and breathing sound, as of an animal giving up 
life in an agony. The brakes were jumped on; the wheels 
skidded, screaming on the tracks. The engine lurched 
past; Andrew caught a glimpse of Scottie, a crouched^ 
masked form in the cab of the engine, with a gun in either 
hand. For Scottie was one of the few natural two-gun 
men that Andrew was ever to know. The engineer and 
the fireman he saw only as two shades before they were 
whisked out of his view. The train rumbled on; then 
it went from half speed to a stop with one jerk that 
brought a cry from the coaches. During the next sec¬ 
ond there was the successive crashing of couplings as 
the coaches took up their slack. 

Andrew, stepping out with his rifle balanced in his 
hands, saw Larry la Roche whip into the rear car. Then 
he himself swept the windows of the train, blurred by 
the mist, with the muzzle of his gun, keeping the butt 
close to his shoulder, ready for a swift snapshot in any 
direction. In fact, his was that very important post, the 
reserve force, which was to come instantly to the aid of 
any overpowered section of the active workers. He 
had rebelled against this minor task, but Allister had 
assured him that, in former times, it was the place which 
he took himself to meet crises in the attack. 



THE HOLDUP 


257 

The leader had gone with Joe Clune straight for the 
front car. How would they storm it? Two guards, 
armed to the teeth, would be in it, and the door was 
closed. 

But the piards had no intention to remain like rats in 
a trap, while the rest of the train was overpowered and 
they themselves were blasted into small bits with a small 
charge of ‘‘soup.” The door jerked open, the barrels 
of two guns protruded. Andrew, thrilling with horror, 
recognized one as a sawed-off shotgun. He saw now 
the meaning of the manner in which Allister and Clune 
made their attack. For Allister had run slowly straight 
for the door, while Clune skirted in close to the cars, go¬ 
ing more swiftly. As the gun barrels went up Allister 
plunged headlong to the ground, and the volley of shot 
missed him cleanly; but Clune the next moment leaped 
out from the side of the car, and, thereby getting himself 
to an angle from which he could deliver a cross fire, 
pumped two bullets through the door. Andrew saw a 
figure throw up its arms, a shadow form in the interior 
of the car, and then a man pitched out headlong through 
the doorway and flopped with horrible limpness on the 
roadbed. While this went on Allister had snapped a 
shot, while he still lay prone, and his single bullet brought 
a scream. The guards were done for. 

Two deaths, Andrew supposed. But presently a man 
was sent out of the car at the point of Clune’s revolver. 
He climbed down with difficulty, clutching one hand 
with the other. He had been shot in the most painful 
place in the body—the palm of the hand. Allister turned 
over the other form with a brutal carelessness that sick¬ 
ened Andrew. But the man had been only stunned by 
a bullet that plowed its way across the top of his skull. 
He sat up now with a trickle running down his face. A 


FREE RANGE FANNING 


258 

gesture from Andrew’s rifle made him and his compan¬ 
ion realize that they were covered, and, without attempt¬ 
ing any further resistance, they sat side by side on the 
ground and tended to each other’s wounds— 3, ludicrous 
group for all their suffering. 

In the meantime, Clune and Allister were at work in 
the car; the water was hissing in the fire box as a vast 
cloud of steam came rushing out around the engine; the 
passengers were pouring out of the cars. They acted 
like a group of actors, carefully rehearsed for the piece. 
Not once did Andrew have to speak to them, while they 
ranged in a solid line, shoulder to shoulder, men, women, 
children. And then Larry la Roche went down the line 
with a saddlebag and took up the collection. 

'Tassin’ the hat so often has give me a religious touch, 
ladies and gents,” Andrew heard the ruffian say. ‘‘Any 
little contributions I’m sure grateful for, and, if any¬ 
thing’s held back. I’m apt to frisk the gent that don’t 
fork over. Hey, you, what’s that lump inside your coat? 
Lady, don’t lie. I seen you drop it inside your dress. 
Why, it’s a nice little set o’ sparklers. That ain’t nothin’ 
to be ashamed of. Come on, please; a little more speed. 
Easy there, partner; don’t take both them hands down at 
once. You can peel the stuff out of your pockets with 
one hand, I figure. Conductor, just lemme see your 
wallet. Thanks! Hate to bother you, ma’am, but you 
sure ain’t traveling on this train with only eighty-five 
cents in your pocketbook. Just lemme have a look at the 
rest. See if you can’t find it in your stocking. No, they 
ain’t anything here to make you blush. You’re among 
friends, lady; a plumb friendly crowd. Your poor old 
pa give you this to go to school on, did he ? Son, you’re 
gettin’ a pile more education out of this than you would 
in college. No, honey, you just keep your locket. It 


THE HOLDUP 


259 

ain’t worth five dollars. Did you? That jeweler ought 
to have my job, ’cause he sure robbed you! You call 
that watch an heirloom? Heirloom is my middle name, 
miss. Just get them danglers out’n your ears, lady. 
Thanks! Don’t hurry, mister; you’ll bust the chain.” 

His monologue was endless; he had a comment for 
every person in the line, and he seemed to have a seventh 
sense for concealed articles. The saddlebag was bulging 
before he was through. At the same time Allister and 
Clune jumped from the car and ran. Larry la Roche 
gave the warning. Every one crouched or lay down. 
The ‘^soup” exploded. The top of the car lifted. It 
made Andrew think, foolishly enough, of some one tip¬ 
ping a hat. It fell slowly, with a crash that was like a 
faint echo of the explosion. Clune ran back, and they 
could hear his shrill yell of delight: ‘Tt ain’t a safe!” 
he exclaimed. 'Tt’s a baby mint!” 

And “a baby mint” it was! It was a gold shipment. 
Gold coin runs about ninety pounds to ten thousand dol¬ 
lars, and there was close to a hundred pounds apiece for 
each of the bandits. It was the largest haul Allister’s 
gang had ever made. Larry la Roche left the pilfering 
of the passengers and went to help carry the loot. They 
brought it out in little, loose canvas bags and went on the 
run with it to the horses. 

Some one was speaking. It was the gray-headed man 
with the glasses and the kindly look about the eyes. 
“Boys, it’s the worst little game you’ve ever worked. I 
promise you we’ll keep on your trail until we’ve run you 
all into the ground. That’s really something to remem¬ 
ber. I speak for Gregg & Sons.” 

“Partner,” said Scottie Macdougal from the cab, where 
he still kept the engineer and fireman covered, “a little 
hunt is like an after-dinner drink to me.” 


26 o 


FREE RANGE FANNING 


To the utter amazement of Andrew the whole crowd i 
^the crowd which had just been carefully and systemati¬ 
cally robbed—burst into laughter. But this was the end. a 
There was Allister’s whistle; Jeff Rankin ran around | 
from the other side of the train; the gang faded instantly J 
into the thicket. Andrew, as the rear guard—^his most | 
ticklish moment—backed slowly toward the trees. Once J 
there was a waver in the line, such as precedes a rush. | 
He stopped short, and a single twitch of his rifle froze j 
the waverers in their tracks. ' f 

Once inside the thicket a yell came from the crowd, I 
but Andrew had whirled and was running at full speed. 
He could hear the others crashing away. Sally, as he ( 
had taught her, broke into a trot as he approached, and | 
the moment he struck the saddle she was in full gallop. 
Guns were rattling behind him; random shots cut the air ^ 
sometimes close to him, but not one of the whole crowd | 
dared venture beyond that unknown screen of trees. ] 








CHAPTER XXXVI 
allister's successor 

T o Andrew the last danger of the holdup had been 
assigned as the rear guard, and he was the last man 
to pass Allister. The leader had drawn his horse to one 
side a couple of miles down the valley, and, as each of his 
band passed him, he raised his hand in silent greeting. It 
was the last Andrew saw of him, a ghostly figure sitting 
his horse with his hand above his head. After that his 
mind was busied by his ride, for, having the finest mount 
in the crowd, to him had been assigned the longest and 
the most roundabout route to reach the Twin Eagles. 

Yet he covered so much ground with Sally that, in¬ 
stead of needing the full five days to make the rendez¬ 
vous, he could afford to loaf the last stage of the jour¬ 
ney. Even at that, he camped in sight of the cabin on 
the fourth night, and on the morning of the fifth he was 
the first man at the shack. ^ 

Jeff Rankin came in next. To Jeff, on account of his 
unwieldy bulk, had been assigned the shortest route; yet 
even so he dismounted, staggering and limping from his 
horse, and collapsed on the pile of boughs which Andrew 
had spent the morning cutting for a bed. As he dropped 
he tossed his bag of coins to the floor. It fell with a 
melodious jingling that was immediately drowned by 
Jeff's groans; the saddle was torture to him, and now he 
was aching in every joint of his enormous body. ‘‘A 
nice haul—nothin' to kick about," was Jeff’s opinion. 


262 


FREE RANGE FANNING 


‘‘But Caesar’s ghost—what a ride! The chief makes this 
thing too hard on a gent that likes to go easy, Andy.” 

Andrew said nothing; silence had been his cue ever 
since he began acting as lieutenant to the chief. It had 
seemed to baffle the others ; it baffled the big man now. 
Later on Joe Clune and Scottie came in together. That 
was about noon—they had met each other an hour be¬ 
fore. But Allister had not come in, although he was 
usually the first at a rendezvous. Neither did Larry la 
Roche come. The day wore on; the silence grew on the 
group. When Andrew, proportioning the work for sup¬ 
per, sent Joe to get wood, Jeff for water, and began him¬ 
self to work with Scottie on the cooking, he was met with 
ugly looks and hesitation before they obeyed. Some¬ 
thing, he felt most decidedly, was in the air. And when 
Joe and Rankin came back slowly, walking side by side 
and talking in soft voices, his suspicions were given an 
edge. 

They wanted to eat together; but he forced Scottie to 
take post on the high hill to their right to keep lookout, 
and for this he received another scowl. Then, when sup¬ 
per was half over, Larry la Roche came in to camp. 
News came with him, an atmosphere of tidings around 
his gloomy figure, but he cast himself down by the fire 
and ate and drank in silence, until his hunger was gone. 
Then he tossed his tin dishes away and they fell clatter¬ 
ing on the rocks. 

‘Tick ’em up,” said Andrew quietly. “We’ll have no 
litter around this camp.” Larry la Roche stared at him 
in hushed malevolence. “Stand up and get ’em,” re¬ 
peated Andrew. As he saw the big hands of Larry 
twitching he smiled across the fire at the tall, bony figure. 
“I’ll give you two seconds to get ’em,” he said. 

One deadly second pulsed away, then Larry crumpled. 


ALLISTER’S SUCCESSOR 263 

He caught up his tin cup and the plate. ‘‘Well talk later 
about you,” he said ominously. 

“Well talk about something else first,” said Andrew. 
“You’ve seen Allister?” 

At first it seemed that La Roche would not speak; then 
his wide, thin lips writhed back from his teeth. “Yes.” 

“Where is he?” 

“Gone to the happy hunting grounds.” 

The silence came and the pulse in it. One by one, by 
a natural instinct, the men looked about them sharply into 
the night and made sure of their weapons. It was the 
only tribute to the memory of Allister from his men, but 
tears and praise could not have been more eloquent. He 
had made these men fearless of the whole world. Now 
were they ready to jump at the passage of a shadow. 
They looked at each other with strange eyes. 

“Who? How many?” asked Jeff Rankin. 

“One man done it.” 

Jeff Rankin’s mouth had fallen ajar. He brushed his 
fist across his loosely trembling lips. 

“Hal Dozier?” said Andrew. 

“Him,” said Larry la Roche. He went on, looking 
gloomily down at the fire. “He got me first. The chief 
must of seen him get me by surprise, while I was down 
off my hoss, lying flat and drinking out of a creek!” He 
closed his great, bony fist in unspeakable agony at the 
thought. “Dozier come behind and took me. Frisked 
me. Took my guns, not the coin. We went down 
through the hills. Then the chief slid out of a shadow 
and come at us like a tiger. I sloped.” 

“You left Allister to fight alone?” said Scottie Mac- 
dougal quietly, for he had come from his lookout to listen. 

“I had no gun,” said Larry, without raising his eyes 
from the fire. “I sloped. I looked back and seen Allis- 


FREE RANGE FANNING 


264 

ter sitting on his hoss, dead still. Hal Dozier was sittin' 
on his hoss, dead still. Five seconds, maybe. Then 
they went for their guns together. They was two bangs 
like one. But Allister slid out of his saddle and Dozier 
stayed in his. I come on here.” 

The quiet covered them. Joe Clune, with a shudder 
and another glance over his shoulder, cast a branch on 
the fire, and the flames leaped. 

‘^Dozier knows you're with us," added Larry la Roche, 
and he cast a long glance of hatred at Andrew. “He 
knows you're with us, and he knows our luck left us 
when you come." 

Andrew looked about the circle; not an eye met his. 

The talk of Larry la Roche during the days of the ride 
was showing its effect now. After all, they were only 
superstitious children, with the destructive power of 
giants. But the gage had been thrown down to An¬ 
drew, and he dared not pick it up. 

“Boys," he said, “I’ll say this: Are we going to bust 
up and each man go his way ?" 

There was no answer. 

“If we do, we can split the profits over again. I'll take 
no money out of a thing that cost Allister's death. 
There’s my sack on the floor of the shack. Divvy it up 
among you. You fitted me out when I was broke. 
That'll pay you back. Do we split up ?" 

“They’s no reason why we should—and be run down 
like rabbits," said Joe Clune, with another of those ter¬ 
rible glances over his shoulder into the night. 

The others assented with so many growls. 

“All right," said Andrew, “we stick together. And, 
if we stick together, I run this camp.” 

“You?” asked Larry la Roche. “Who picked you? 
RVho ’lected you, son ? Why, you unlucky- ** 



ALLISTER’S SUCCESSOR 


^‘Ease up,” said Andrew softly. 

The eyes of La Roche flicked across the circle and 
picked up the glances of the others, but they were not 
yet ready to tackle Andrew Lanning. The hand which 
had been sliding back along the ground ceased its retro¬ 
grade motion, and he watched Andrew with eyes like a 
cat. 

‘The last thing Allister did,” said Andrew, “was to 
make me his lieutenant. It’s the last thing he did, and 
I’m going to push it through. Not because I like the 
job.” He raised his head, but not his voice. “They 
may run down the rest of you. They won’t run down 
me. They can’t. They’ve tried, and they can’t. And 
I might be able to keep the rest of you clear. I’m going 
to try. But I won’t follow the lead of any of you. If 
there’d been one that could keep the rest of you together, 
d’you think Allister wouldn’t have seen it? Don’t you 
think he would of made that one leader? Why, look at 
you! Jeff, you’d follow Clune. But would Larry or 
Scottie follow Clune? Look at ’em and see!” 

All eyes went to Clune, and then the glances of Scot¬ 
tie and La Roche dropped. 

“Nobody here would follow La Roche. He’s the best 
man we’ve got for some of the hardest work, but you’re 
too flighty with your temper, Larry, and you know it. 
We respect you just as much, but not .to plan things for 
the rest of us. Is that straight?” 

They could not face this direct talk. Each of them 
was beginning to understand that the “kid” had looked 
through his eyes and into his heart. 

“And you, Scottie,” said Andrew, “you’re the only 
one I’d follow. I say that freely. But who else would 
follow you? You’re the best of us all at headwork and 
planning, but you don’t swing your gun as fast, and you 


266 FREE RANGE FANNING 

don’t shoot as straight as Jeff or Larry or Joe. Is that 
straight ?” 

‘‘What’s leading the gang got to do with fighting?” 
asked Scottie harshly. “And who’s got the right to the 
head of things but me?” 

“Ask Allister what fighting had to do with the running 
of things,” said Andrew calmly. 

The moon was sliding up out of the East; it changed 
the faces of the men and made them oddly animallike; 
they stared, fascinated, at Andrew. 

“There’s two reasons why I’m going to run this job, 
if we stick together. Allister named them once. I can 
take advice from any one of you; I know what each of 
you can do; I can plan a job for you; I can lead you clear 
of the law—and there’s not one of you that can bully 
me or make me give an inch—no, nor all of you together 
—La Roche! Macdougal! Clune! Rankin!” 

It was like a roll call, and at each name a head was 
jerked up in answer, and two glittering eyes flashed at 
Andrew—flashed, sparkled, and then became dull. The 
moonlight had made his pale skin a deadly white, and it 
was a demoniac face they saw. 

The silence was his answer. 

“Jeff,” he commanded, “take the hill. You’ll stand 
the watch to-night. And look sharp. If Dozier got 
Allister he’s apt to come at us. Step on!” 

And Jeff Rankin rose without a word and lumbered 
to the top of the hill. Larry la Roche suddenly filled his 
cup with boiling hot coffee, regardless of the heat, re¬ 
gardless of the dirt in the cup. His hand shook when 
he raised it to his lips. 


CHAPTER XXXVII 

A DUEL TO THE DEATH 

T here was no further attempt at challenging his 
authority. When he ordered Clune and La Roche 
to bring in boughs for bedding—since they were to stop 
in the shack overnight—they went silently. But it was 
such a silence as comes when the wind falls at the end 
of a day and in a silent sky the clouds pile heavily, high 
and higher. Andrew took the opportunity to speak to 
Scottie Macdougal. He told Scottie simply that he 
needed him, and with him at his back he could handle 
the others, and more, too. He was surprised to see a 
twinkle in the eye of the Scotchman. 

‘'Why, Andy,'' said the canny fellow, “didn't you see 
me pass you the wink? I was with you all the time!" 

Andrew thanked him and went into the cabin to ar¬ 
range for lights. He had no intention of shirking a 
share in the actual work of the camp; even though Allis- 
ter had set that example for his following. He took 
some lengths of pitchy pine sticks and arranged them for 
torches. One of them alone would send a flare of yel¬ 
low light through the cabin; two made a comfortable 
illumination. But he worked cheerlessly. The excite¬ 
ment of the robbery and the chase was over, and then the 
conflict with the men was passing. He began to see 
things truly by the drab light of retrospection. The 
bullets of Allister and Clune might have gone home— 
they were intended to kill, not to wound. And if there 
had been two deaths he, Andrew Tanning, would have 


268 FREE RANGE FANNING 

been equally guilty with the men who handled the guns, 
for he had been one of the forces which made that shoot¬ 
ing possible. 

It was an ugly way to look at it—very ugly. It kept 
a frown on Andrew’s face, while he arranged the torches 
in the main room of the shack and then put one for 
future reference in the little shed which leaned against 
the rear of the main structure. He had piled the boughs 
for four bunks in the first room; he arranged his own 
bed in this second room, where the saddles and other 
accouterments were piled. It was easily explained, since 
there was hardly room for five men in the first room. 
But he had another purpose. He wanted to separate 
himself from the others, just as Allister always did. 
Even in a crowded room Allister would seem aloof, and 
Andrew determined to make the famous leader his guide. 

Above all he was troubled by what Scottie had said. 
He would have felt easy at heart if the Scotchman had 
met him with an argument or with a frown or honest 
opposition or with a hearty handshake, to say that all 
was well between them. But this cunning lie—this cun¬ 
ning protestation that he had been with the new leader 
from the first, put Andrew on his guard. For he knew 
perfectly well that Scottie had not been on his side dur¬ 
ing the crisis with La Roche. Macdougal sat before the 
door, his metal flask of whisky beside him. It was a 
fault of Allister, this permitting of whisky at all times 
and in all places, after a job was finished. And while 
it made the other men savage beasts, it turned Scottie 
Macdougal into a wily, smiling snake. He had bit the 
heel of more than one man in his drinking bouts. 

Presently La Roche and«Clune came in. They had 
been talking together again. Andrew could tell by the 
manner in which they separated, as soon as they entered 


A DUEL TO THE DEATH 


269 

the room, and by their voices, which they made loud and 
cheerful; and, also, by the fact that they avoided look¬ 
ing at each other. They were striving patently to prove 
that there was nothing between them; and if Andrew had 
been on guard, now he became tinglingly so. 

They arranged their bunks; Larry la Roche pulled off 
his boots and put on great, flapping slippers, which he 
always included in his pack. He took from his vest a 
pipe with a small bowl and a long stem and sat down 
cross-legged to smoke. Andrew suggested that Larry 
produce the contents of his saddlebag and share the spoils 
of war. 

He brought it out willingly enough and spilled it out 
on the improvised table, a glittering mass of gold trin¬ 
kets, watches, jewels. He picked out of the mass a 
chain of diamonds and spread it out on his snaky fingers 
so that the light could play on it. Andrew knew nothing 
about gems, but he knew that the chain must be worth 
a great deal of money. 

'‘This,” said Larry, "is my share. You gents can 
have the rest and split it up.” 

"A nice set of sparklers,” nodded Clune, "but there’s 
plenty left to satisfy me.” 

"What you think,” declared Scottie, "ain’t of any im¬ 
portance, Joe. It’s what the chief thinks that counts. 
Is it square, Lanning?” 

Andrew flushed at the appeal and the ugly looks which 
La Roche and Clune cast toward him. He could have 
stifled Scottie for that appeal, and yet Scottie was smil¬ 
ing in the greatest apparent good nature and belief in 
their leader. His face was flushed, but his lips were 
bloodless. Alcohol always affected him in that manner. 

"I don’t know the value of the stones,” said Andrew. 

"Don’t you?” murmured Scottie. "I forgot. Thought 


2^0 FREE RANGE FANNING 

maybe you would. That was something that Allister did 
know.’’ 

The new leader saw a flash of glances toward Scot- 
tie, but the latter continued to eye the captain with a 
steady and innocent look. 

‘"Scottie,” decided Andrew instantly, ‘fls my chief 
enemy.” 

If he could detach one man to his side all would be 
well. Two against three would be a simple thing, as 
long as he was one of the two. But four against one 
—'and such a four as these—was hopeless odds. There 
seemed little chance of getting Joe Clune. There re¬ 
mained only Jeff Rankin as his possibly ally, and already 
he had stepped on Jeff’s toes sorely, by making the tired 
giant stand guard. He thought of all these things, of 
course, in a flash. And then in answer to his thoughts 
Jeff Rankin appeared. His heavy footfall crashed in¬ 
side the door. He stopped, panting, and, in spite of 
his news, paused to blink at the flash of jewels. 

‘Tt’s cornin’,” said Jeff. ‘Xarry, hop into your shoes. 
No, don’t stop for that. Boys, get your guns and scat¬ 
ter out of the cabin. Duck that light! Hal Dozier is 
cornin’ up the valley.” 

There was not a single exclamation, but the lights 
went out as if by magic; there were a couple of light, 
hissing sounds, such as iron makes when it is whipped 
swiftly across leather. 

‘^How’d you know him by this light?” asked Larry la 
Roche, as they went out of the door. Outside they 
found everything brilliant with the white moonshine of 
the mountains. 

‘‘Nobody but Hal Dozier rides twistin’ that way in 
the saddle. I’d tell him in a thousand. It’s old wounds 
that makes him ride like that. We got ten minutes. 


A DUEL TO THE DEATH 


271 

He’s takin’ the long way up the canon. And they ain’t 
anybody with him.” 

“If he’s come alone,” said Andrew, “he’s come for 
me and not for the rest of you.” 

No one spoke. Then Larry la Roche: “He wants 
to make it man to man. That’s clear. That’s why he 
pulled up his boss and waited for Allister to make the 
first move for his gun. It’s a clean challenge to some 
one of us.” 

Andrew saw his chance and used it mercilessly. 

“Which one of you is willing to take the challenge?” 
he asked. “Which one of you is willing to ride down 
the canon and meet him alone? La Roche, I’ve heard 
you curse Dozier.” 

But Larry la Roche answered: “What’s this fool talk 
about takin’ a challenge? I say, string out behind the 
hills and pot him with rifles.” 

“One man, and we’re five,” said Jeff Rankin. “It 
ain’t sportin’, Larry. I hate to hear you say that. We’d 
be despised all over the mountains if we done it. He’s 
makin’ his play with a lone hand, and we’ve got to meet 
him the same way. Eh, chief ?” 

It was sweet to Andrew to hear that appeal. And 
he saw them turn one by one toward him in the moon¬ 
light and wait. It was his first great tribute. He 
looked over those four wolfish figures and felt his heart 
swelling. 

“Wish me luck, boys,’^he said, and without another 
word he turned and went down the hillside. 

The others watched him with amazement. He felt it 
rather than saw it, and it kept a tingle in his blood. He 
felt, also, that they were spreading out to either side to 
get a clear view of the fight that was to follow, and it 
occurred to him that, even if Hal Dozier killed him, there 


FREE RANGE FANNING 


272 

would not be one chance in a thousand of Hal’s getting 
away. Four deadly rifles would be covering him. 

It must be that a sort of madness had come on Dozier, 
advancing in this manner, unsupported by a posse. Or, 
perhaps, he had no idea that the outlaws could be so close. 
He expected a daylight encounter high up the mountains. 

But Andrew went swiftly down the ravine. 

Broken cliffs, granite bowlders jumped up on either 
side of him, and the rocks were pale and glimrnering 
under the moon. This one valley seemed to receive the 
light; the loftier mountains rolling away on each side 
were black as jet, with sharp, ragged outlines against the 
sky. It was a cold light, and the chill of it went through 
Andrew. He was afraid, afraid as he had been when 
Buck Heath faced him in Martindale, or when Bill Do¬ 
zier ran him down, or when the famous Sandy cornered 
him. His fingers felt brittle, and his breath came and 
went in short gasps, drawn into the upper part of his 
lungs only. 

Behind him, like an electric force pushing him on, the 
outlaws watched his steps. They, also, were shuddering 
with fear, and he knew it. But stronger than the force 
behind was the desperate thrill, the old urge to cast him¬ 
self away like a man on the cliff. A sort of terrible hap¬ 
piness was in Andrew, but a weakness in his legs made 
him walk slowly and more slowly. His knees were numb. 
A puma was crying among the mountains. He really did 
not hear the sound or recognize it; he only knew that 
something came on his ear like the moonlight on his eye, 
something that thrust a chill home to his heart. 

Dozier was coming, fresh from another kill. 

‘‘Only one man I’d think twice about meeting,” Allis- 
ter had said in the old days, and he had been right. Yet 


A DUEL TO THE DEATH 


273 

there were thousands who had sworn that Allister was 
invincible—^that he would never fall before a single, man. 

He thought, too, of the lean face and the peculiar, set 
eye of Dozier. The man had no fear, he had no nerves; 
he was a machine, and death was his business. 

And was he, Andrew Lanning, unknown until the past 
few months, now going down to face destruction, as full 
of fear as a girl trembling at the dark? What was it 
that drew them together, so unfairly matched? A 
ghostly thought came to him that all this had been planned 
and arranged by some unearthly power, and now, against 
his will, he was dragged into the path of the destroyer. 

He could still see only the white haze of the moon¬ 
shine before him, but now there was the clicking of hoofs 
on the rock. Dozier was coming. Andrew walked 
squarely out into the middle of the ravine and waited. 
He had set his teeth. The nerves on the bottom of his 
feet were twitching. Something freezing cold was be¬ 
ginning at the tips of his fingers. And, unless he fought 
those beginnings down, a great trembling would sweep 
over him in a moment, and he would be helpless. How 
long would it take Dozier to come? 

~ An interminable time. The hoofbeats actually seemed 
to fade out and draw away at one time. Then they 
began again very near him, and now they stopped. Had 
Dozier seen him around the elbow curve? That heart¬ 
breaking instant passed, and the clicking began again. 
Then the rider came slowly in view. First there was 
the nodding head of the cow pony, then the foot in the 
stirrup, then Hal Dozier riding a little twisted in the 
saddle—a famous characteristic of his. 

He came on closer and closer. He began to seem 
huge on the horse. Was he blind not to see the figure 
|hat waited for him?. 


FREE RANGE FANNING 


274 

A voice that was not his, that he did not recognize, 
leaped out from between his teeth and tore his throat: 
‘^Dozier!” 

The cow pony halted with a start; the rider jerked 
straight in his saddle; the echo of the call barked back 
from some angling cliff face down the ravine. All that 
before Dozier made his move. He had dropped the 
reins, and Andrew, with a mad intention of proving that 
he himself did not make the first move toward his weapon, 
had folded his arms. 

He did not move through the freezing instant that fol¬ 
lowed. Not until there was a convulsive jerk of Dozier’s 
elbow did he stir his folded arms. Then his right arm 
ioosened, and the hand flashed down to his holster. 

Was Dozier moving with clogged slowness, or was it 
that he had ceased to be a body, that he was all brain and 
hair-trigger nerves making every thousandth part of a 
second seem a unit of time ? It seemed to Andrew that 
the marshal’s hand dragged through its work; to those 
who watched from the sides of the ravine, there was a 
flash of fire from his gun before they saw even the flash 
of the steel out of the holster. The gun spat in the hand 
of Dozier, and something jerked at the shirt of Andrew 
beside his neck. He himself had fired only once, and 
he knew that the shot had been too high and to the right 
of his central target; yet he did not fire again. Some¬ 
thing strange was happening to Hal Dozier. His head 
had nodded forward as though in mockery of the bullet; 
his extended right hand fell slowly, slowly; his whole 
body began to sway and lean toward the right. Not 
until that moment did Andrew know that he had shot the 
marshal through the body. 

He raced to the side of the cattle pony, and, as the 
horse veered away, Hal Dozier dropped limply into his 


A DUEL TO THE DEATH 


27 S 


arms. He lay with his limbs sprawling at odd angles 
beside him. His muscles seemed paralyzed, but his eyes, 
were bright and wide, and his face perfectly composed. 

‘‘There’s luck for you,” said Hal Dozier calmly. ‘T 
pulled it two inches to the right, or I would have broken 
your neck with the slug—anyway, I spoiled your shirt.” 

The cold was gone from Andrew, and he felt his heart 
thundering and shaking his body. He was repeating like 
a frightened child, “For God’s sake, Hal, don’t die— 
don’t die.” 

The paralyzed body did not move, but the calm voice; 
answered him: “You fool! Finish me before your 
gang comes and does it for you 1” 


CHAPTER XXXVIII 


ANDY PAYS HIMSELF 

T here was a rush of footsteps behind and around 
him, a jangle of voices, and there were the four hud¬ 
dled over Hal Dozier. Andrew had risen and stepped 
back, silently thanking God that it was not a death. He 
heard the voices of the four like voices in a dream. 

“A clean one.’' ‘'A nice bit of work.” '‘Dozier, are 
you thinkin’ of Allister, curse you?” “D’you remem¬ 
ber Hugh Wiley now?” “D’you maybe recollect my pal, 
^Bud’ Swain? Think about ’em, Dozier, while you’re 
dyin’!” 

The calm eyes traveled without hurry from face to 
face. And curiosity came to Andrew, a cool, deadly 
curiosity. He stepped among the gang. 

“He’s not fatally hurt,” he said. “What d’you intend 
to do with him?” 

“You’re all wrong, chief,” said Larry la Roche, and 
he grinned at Andrew. His submission now was perfect 
and complete. There was even a sort of worship in the 
bright eyes that looked at the new leader. “I hate to 
say it, but right as you mos’ gener’ly are, you’re wrong 
this time. He’s done. He don’t need no more lookin’ 
to. Leave him be for an hour and he’ll be finished. 
Also, that’ll give him a chance to think. He needs a: 
chance. Old Curley had a chance to think—took him 
four hours to kick out after Dozier plugged him. I 
heard what he had to say, and it wasn’t pretty. I think 


ANDY PAYS HIMSELF 


27;, 

maybe it'd be sort of interestin’ to hear what Dozier has 
to say. Long about the time he gets thirsty. Eh, boys ?” 

There was a snarl from the other three as they looked 
down at the wounded man, who did not speak a word. 
And Andrew knew that he was indeed alone with that 
crew, for the man whom he had just shot down was 
nearer to him than the members of Allister’s gang. 

He spoke suddenly: t^ke his head; Clune, take 

his feet. Carry him up to the cabin.” 

They only stared at him. 

“Look here, captain,” said Scottie in a soft voice, just 
a trifle thickened by whisky, “are you- thinking of taking 
him up there and tying him up so that he’ll live through 
this?” 

And again the other three snarled softly. 

“You murdering hounds!” said Andrew. 

That was all. They looked at each other; they looked 
at the new leader. And the sight of his white face and 
his nervous right hand was too much for them. They 
took up the marshal and carried him to the cabin, his 
pony following like a dog behind. They brought him, 
•without asking for directions, straight into the little rear 
room—^Andrew’s room. It was a sufficiently intelligible 
way of saying that this was his work and none of theirs. 
And not a hand lifted to aid him while he went to work 
with the bandaging. He knew little about such work, 
but the marshal himself, in a rather faint, but perfectly 
steady voice, gave directions. And in the painful clean¬ 
ing of the wound he did not murmur once. Neither did 
he express the slightest gratitude. He kept following 
Andrew about the room with coldly curious eyes. 

In the next room the voices of the four were a steady, 
rumbling murmur. Now and then the glance of the 
marshal wandered to the door. When the bandaging 


FREE RANGE FANNING 


278 

was completed, he asked, ‘^Do you know you’ve started 
a job you can’t finish?” 

‘^Ah?” murmured Andrew. 

‘Those four,” said the marshal, “won’t let you.” 

Andrew smiled. 

“Are you easier now ?” 

“Don’t bother about me. I’ll tell you what—I wish 
you’d get me a drink of water.” 

“I’ll send one of the boys.” 

“No, get it yourself. I want to say something to 
them while you’re gone.” 

Andrew had risen up from his knees. He now 
studied the face of the marshal steadily. 

“You want ’em to come in here and drill you, eh ?” he 
said. “Why?” 

The other nodded. 

“I’ve given up hope once; I’ve gone through the hard¬ 
est part of dying; let them finish the job now.” 

“To-morrow you’ll feel differently.” 

“Willi? Not I!” 

Andrew stared at him. 

“What have I got to live for?” asked the marshal. 
All at once his eyes went yellow with hate. “I go back 
to the desert—I go to Martindale—people I pass on the 
street whisper as I go by. They’ll tell over and over how 
I went down. And a kid did it-—a raw kid!” 

He closed his eyes in silent agony. Then he looked 
up more keenly than before. “How’ll they know that it 
was luck—that my gun stuck in the holster—and that 
you jumped me on the draw?” 

“You lie,” said Andrew calmly. “Your gun came out 
clean as a whistle, and I waited for you, Dozier. You 
know I did.” 


ANDY PAYS HIMSELF 


279 

The pain in the marshars face became a ghastly thing 
to see. At last he could speak. 

'‘A sneak always lies well/' he replied, as he sneered 
at Fanning. 

He went on, while Andrew sat shivering with passion. 
‘'And any fool can get in a lucky shot now and then. 
But, when I'm out of this. I’ll hunt you down again and 
I’ll plant you full of lead, my son! You can lay to that!” 

The hard breathing of Andrew gradually subsided. 

“It won’t work, Dozier,” he said quietly. “You can’t 
make me mad enough to shoot a man who's down. You 
can't make me murder you.” 

The marshal closed his eyes again, while his breathing 
was beginning to grow fainter, and there was an unpleas¬ 
ant rattle in the hollow of his throat. Andrew went 
into the next room. 

“Scottie,” he said, “will you let me have your flask?” 

Scottie smiled at him. 

“Not for what you’d use it for, Lanning,” he said. 

Andrew picked up a cup and shoved it across the table. 

“Pour a little whisky in that, please,” he said. 

Scottie looked up and studied him. Then he tipped 
his flask and poured a thin stream into the cup until it 
was half full. Andrew went back toward the door, the 
cup in his left hand. He backed up, keeping his face 
steadily toward the four, and kicked open the door behind 
him. 

War, he knew, had been declared. Then he raised 
the marshal’s head and gave him a sip of the fiery stuff. 
It cleared the face of the wounded man. 

Then Andrew rolled down his blankets before the 
door, braced a small stick against it, so that the sound 
would be sure to waken him if any one tried to enter, 
and laid down for the night. He was almost asleep 


28 o 


FREE RANGE FANNING 


when the marshal said: ‘‘Are you really going to stick 
it out, Andy 

“Yes.’^ 

“In spite of what IVe said 

“I suppose you meant it all ? YouM hunt me down and 
kill me like a dog after you get back on your feet?’’ 

“Like a dog.” 

“If you think it over and see things clearly,” replied 
Andrew, “you’ll see that what I’ve done I’ve done for 
my own sake, and not for yours.” 

“How do you make that out—with four men in the 
next room ready to stick a knife in your back—if I know 
anything about ’em?” 

“I’ll tell you: I owe nothing to you, but a man owes a 
lot to himself, and I’m going to pay myself in full.” 


CHAPTER XXXIX 


IN THE OTHER ROOM 

H e closed his eyes and tried to sleep, but, though he 
came to the verge of oblivion, the voices from the 
other room finally waked him. They had been chang¬ 
ing subtly during the past hours and now they rose, and 
there was a ring to them that troubled Andrew. 

He could make out their talk part of the time; and 
then again they lowered their voices to rumbling growls. 
At such times he knew that they were speaking of him, 
and the hum of the undertone was more ominous than 
open threats. When they talked aloud there was a con¬ 
fused clamor; when they were more hushed there was 
always the oily murmur of Scottie’s voice, taking the 
lead and directing the current of the talk. More and 
more he felt that this man would be his stumbling block. 
One and all they hated the marshal and had no great 
love for their new leader; but the rest of them were rather 
dangerous mechanics in the world of crime; Scottie Mac- 
dougal was a thinking brain. 

The liquor was going the rounds fast, now. Before 
they left for the Murchison Pass they had laid in a com¬ 
fortable supply, but apparently Allister had cached a 
quantity of the stuff at the Twin Eagles shack. Of one 
thing Andrew was certain, that four such practiced 
whisky drinkers would never let their party denegerate 
into a drunken rout; and another thing was even more 
sure—that Scottie Macdougal would keep his head better 
than the best of the others. But what the alcohol would 


282 


FREE RANGE LANNING 


do would be to cut the leash of constraint and dig up 
every strong passion among them. For instance, Jeif 
Rankin was by far the most equable of the lot, but, given 
a little whisky, Jeff became a conscienceless devil. 

He knew his own weakness, and Andrew, crawling to 
the door and putting his ear to the crack under it, found 
that the sounds of the voices became instantly clearer; 
the others were plying Jeff with the liquor, and Jeff, 
knowing that he had had enough, was persistently refus¬ 
ing, but with less and less energy. 

There must be a very definite reason for this urging of 
Rankin toward the whisky, and Andrew was not hard 
pressed to find out that reason. The big, rather good- 
natured giant was leaning toward the side of the new 
leader, just as steadily as the others were leaning away 
from him. Whisky alone would stop his scruples. 
Larry la Roche, his voice a guarded, hissing whisper, 
was speaking to Jeff as Andrew began listening from his 
new position. 

‘‘What I ask you,” said La Roche, “is this: Have we 
had any luck since the kid joined us?” 

“We’ve got a pile of the coin,” said Jeff obstinately. 

“D’you stack a little coin against the loss of Allister ?” 
asked Larry la Roche. 

“Easy,” cautioned Scottie. “Not so loud, Larry.” 

“He’s asleep,” said Larry la Roche. “I heard him 
lie down after he’d put something agin’ the door. No 
fear of him.” 

“Don’t be so sure. He might make a noise lying down 
and make not a sound getting up. And, even when he’s 
asleep, he’s got one eye open like a wolf.” 

“Well,” repeated Larry insistently, and now his voice 
was so faint that Andrew had to guess at half the syl- 


IN THE OTHER ROOM 


283 

lables, ‘^answer my question, Jeff: Have we had good 
luck or bad luck, takin’ it all in all, since he joined us?'' 

‘‘How do I know it's his fault?" asked Jeff. ‘‘We all 
knew it would be a close pinch if Allister ever jumped 
Hal Dozier. We thought Allister was a little bit faster 
than Dozier. Everybody else said that Dozier was the 
best man that ever pulled a gun out of leather. It wasn't 
luck that beat Allister—it was a better man." 

There was a thud as his fist hit the rickety, squeaking 
table in the center of the room. 

“I say, let’s play fair and square. How do I know 
that the kid won’t make a good leader?’’ 

Scottie broke in smoothly: 

“Makes me grin when you say that, Jeff. Tell you 
what the trouble is with you, old man: you’re too mod¬ 
est. A fellow that’s done what you've done, following 
a kid that ain’t twenty-five!" 

There was a bearlike grunt from Jeff. He was not 
altogether displeased by this gracious tribute. But he 
answered: “You’re too slippery with your tongue, Scot¬ 
tie. I never know when you mean what you say!" 

It must have been a bitter pill for Scottie to swallow, 
but he was not particularly formidable with his weapons, 
compared with straight-eyed Jeff Rankin, and he an¬ 
swered: “Maybe there’s some I jolly along a bit, but, 
when I talk to old Jeff Rankin, I talk straight. Look 
at me now, Jeff. Do I look as if I was joking with you ?’’ 

“I ain’t any hand at readin' minds," grumbled Jeff. 

He added suddenly: “I say it was the finest thing 
I ever see, the way young Lanning stood out there in the 
valley. Did you watch? Did you see him let Dozier 
get the jump on his gun? Pretty, pretty, pretty! And 
then his own gat was out like a flash—one wink, and 
there was Hal Dozier drilled clean! I tell you, boys, you 


FREE RANGE FANNING 


284 

got this young Fanning wrong. I sort of cotton to the 
kid. I always did. I liked him the first time I ever 
laid eyes on him. So did you all, except Farry, yonder. 
And it was Farry that turned you agin’ him after he come 
and joined us. Who asked him to join us? We did!” 

‘*Who asked him to be captain ?” said Scottie. 

It seemed to stagger Jeff Rankin. 

‘‘Allister used him for a sort of second man; seemed 
like he meant him to lead us in case anything happened 
to him.” 

“While Allister was living,” said Scottie, “you know I 
would of followed him anywhere. Wasn’t I his ad¬ 
vance agent ? Didn’t I do his planning with him ? But 
now Allister’s dead—worse luck—^but dead he is.” 

He paused here cunningly, and, no doubt, during that 
pause each of the outlaws conjured up a picture of the 
scar-faced man with the bright, steady eyes, who had 
led them so long and quelled them so often and held them 
together through thick and thin. 

“Allister’s dead,” repeated Scottie, “and what he did 
while he was alive don’t hold us now. We chose him 
for captain out of our own free will. Now that he’s 
dead we have the right to elect another captain. What’s 
Fanning done that he has a right to fill Allister’s place 
with us? What job did he have at the holdup? When 
we stuck up the train didn’t he have the easiest job? Did 
he give one good piece of advice while we were plannin’ 
the job? Did he show any ability to lead us, then?” 

The answer came unhesitatingly from Rankin: “It 
wasn’t his place to lead while Allister was with us. And 
I’ll tell you what he done after Allister died. When I 
seen Dozier cornin’, who was it that stepped out to meet 
him? Was it you, Scottie? No, it wasn’t. It wasn’t 
you, Fa Roche, neither, nor you, Clune, and it wasn’t me. 


IN THE OTHER ROOM 285 

;Made me sick inside, the thought of facin’ Dozier. Why? 
j Because I knew he’d never been beat. Because I knew 
he was a better man than Allister, and that Allister had 
been a better man than me. And it ain’t no braggin’ to 
say Tm a handier gent with my guns than any of you. 
Well, I was sick, and you all were sick. I seen yo'ur 
faces. But who steps out and takes the lead? It was 
the kid you grin at, Scottie; it was Andy Banning, and 
I say it was a fine thing to do!” 

It was undoubtedly a facer; but Scottie came back 
in his usual calm manner. 

^T know it was Banning, and it was a fine thing. I 
don’t deny, either, that he’s a fine gent in lots of ways— 
and in his place—but is his place at the head of the gang ? 
Are we going to be bullied into having him there ?” 

^Then let him follow, and somebody else lead.” 

‘‘You make me laugh, Jeff. He’s not the sort that will 
follow anybody.” 

Plainly Scottie was working on Jeff from a distance. 
He would bring him slowly around to the place where 
he would agree to the attack on Andrew for the sake of 
getting at the wounded marshal. And the big man did 
not have the mental endurance to hold out long against 
his more agile-minded comrade. 

“Have another drink, Jeff, and then let’s get back to 
the main point, and that has nothin’ to do with Andy. 
It is: Is Hal Dozier going to live or die?” 

The time had come, Andrew saw, to make his final 
play. A little more of this talk and the big, good- 
hearted, strong-handed Rankin would be completely on 
the side of the others. And that meant the impossible 
odds of four to one. Andrew knew it. He would at¬ 
tack any two of them without fear. But three became 



286 FREE RANGE FANNING 

a desperate, a grim battle; and four to one made the 
thing suicide. 

He slipped silently to his feet from beside the door and 
picked up the canvas bag which represented his share of 
the robbery. Then he knocked at the door. 

“Boys,” he called, “there’s been some hard thoughts 
between the lot of you and me. It looks like we’re on 
opposite sides of a fence. I want to come in and talk to 
you.” 

Instantly Scottie answered: “Why, come on in, cap¬ 
tain ; not such hard words as you think—not on my side, 
anyways!” 

It was a cunning enough lure, no doubt, and Andrew 
had his hand on the latch of the door before a second 
thought reached him. If he exposed himself, would not 
the three of them pull their guns? They would be able 
to account for it to Jeff Rankin later on. 

“I’ll come in,” said Andrew, “when I hear you give 
me surety that I’ll be safe. I don’t trust you, Scottie.’^ 

“Thanks for that What surety do you want?” 

“I want the word of Jeff Rankin that he’ll see me 
through till I’ve made my talk to you and my proposi¬ 
tion.” 

It was an excellent counterthrust, but Larry la Roche 
saw through the attempt to win Jeff immediately. 

“You skunk!” he said. “If you don’t trust us we 
don’t trust you. Stay where you be. We don’t want to 
hear your talk 1” 

“Jeff, what do you say?” continued Andrew calmly. 

There was a clamor of three voices and then the louder 
voice of Jeff, like a lion shaking itself clear of wolves: 
“Andy, come in, and I’ll see you get a square deal—if 
you’ll trust me!” 

Instantly Andrew threw open the door and stepped in, 


/ 

IN THE OTHER ROOM 287 

his revolver in one hand, the heavy sack over his other 
■ arm, a dragging weight and also a protection. ' 

“I’ll trust you, Jeff,” he said. “Trust you? Why, 
man, with you at my back I’d laugh at twenty fellows 
like these. They simply don’t count.” 

It was another well-placed shot, and he saw Rankin 
flush heavily with pleasure. Scottie tilted his box back 
j against the wall and delivered his counterstroke: “He 
I said the same thing to me earlier on in the evening,” he 
I remarked casually. “But I told him where to go. I told 
him that I was with the bunch first and last and all the 
time. That’s why he hates me I” 



CHAPTER XL 


AT THE POINT OF A RIFLE 

W IILE he searched desperately for an answer, An¬ 
drew found none. Then he saw the stupid, big 
eyes of Jeff wander from his face to the face of Scot- 
tie, and he knew that his previous advantage had been 
completely neutralized. 

*‘Boys,’' he said, and he surveyed the restless, savage 
figures of Clune and La Roche, ‘T’ve come for a little 
plain talk. There’s no more question about me leadin’ 
the gang. None at all. I wouldn’t lead you, La Roche, 
nor you, Clune, nor you, Scottie. There’s only one man 
here that’s clean—and he’s Jeff Rankin.” 

He waited for that point to sink home; as Scottie 
opened his lips to strike back, he went ahead deliberately. 
By retaining his own calm he saw that he kept a great 
advantage. Rankin began fumbling at his cup; Scottie 
instantly filled it half full with whisky. 

“Don’t drink that,” said Andrew sharply. “Don’t 
drink it, Jeff. Scottie’s doin’ that on purpose to get you 
sapheaded!” 

“Do what he says,” said Scottie calmly. “Throw the 
dirty stuff away, Jeff. Do what your daddy tells you. 
You ain’t old enough to know your own mind, are you?” 

Big Jeff flushed, cast a glance of defiance that included 
both Andrew and Scottie, and tossed off the whisky. It 
was a blow over the heart for Andrew; he had to finish 
his talking now, before Jeff Rankin was turned mad by 


. AT THE POINT OF A RIFLE 289 

the whisky. And if he worked it well Jeff would be on 
his side. The madness would fight for Andrew. 

He said: “There’s no more question about me being 
a leader for you. Personally, I’d like to have Jeff—^not 
to follow me, but to be pals with me.” 

Jeff cleared his throat and looked about with foolish 
importance. Not an eye wavered to meet his glance; 
every look was fixed with a hungry hate upon Andrew, 
i “There’s only one thing up between the lot of us: Do 
I keep Hal Dozier, or do you get him—to murder him ? 
Do you fellows ride on your way free and easy, to do 
what you please, or do you tackle me in that room, eat 
my lead, and then, if you finish me, get a chance to kill 
a man that’s nearly dead now ? How does it look to you, 
boys? Think it over. Think sharp!” 

He knew while he spoke that there was one exqui¬ 
sitely simple way to end both his life and the life of 
Dozier—let them touch a match to the building and shoot 
him while he ran from the flames. But he could only 
pray that they would not see it. 

“And besides. I’ll do more. You think you have a 
claim on Dozier. I’ll buy him from you. Here’s half 
his weight in gold. Will you take the money and clear 
out? Or are you going to make the play at me? If 
you do, you’ll buy whatever you get at a high price!” 

“You forget-” put in Scottie, but Andrew inter¬ 

rupted. 

“I don’t want to hear from you, Scottie.^ I know 
you’re a snake. I want to hear from Jeff Rankin. Speak 
up, Jeff. Everything’s in your hands, and I trust you!” 

The giant rose from his chair. His face was white 
with the effect of the whisky, and one spot of color burned 
in each cheek. He looked gloweringly upon his com¬ 
panions. 




FREE RANGE FANNING 


290 

‘‘Andy,” he said, “I-” 

“Wait a minute,” said Scottie swiftly, seeing that the 
scales were balancing toward a defeat. 

“Let him talk. You don’t have to tell him what to 
say,” said Andrew. 

“I’ve got a right to put our side up to him—for the 
sake of the things we’ve been through together. Jeff, 
have I?” 

Jeff Rankin cleared his throat importantly. Scottie 
faced him; the others kept their unchanging eyes rivetted 
upon Andrew, ready for the gun play at the first flicker 
of an eyelid. The first sign of unwariness would begin 
and end the battle. 

“Don’t forget this,” went on Scottie, having Jeff’s 
attention. “Andy is workin’ to keep Dozier alive. Why? 
Dozier’s the law, isn’t he? Then Andy wants to make 
up with the law. He wants to sneak out. He wants to 
turn state’s evidence!” 

The deadly phrase shocked Jeff Rankin a pace back 
toward soberness. 

“I never thought,” he began. 

“You’re too straight to think of it. Take another 
look at Fanning. Is he one of us? Has he ever been 
one of us? No! Look again! Dozier has hunted Fan¬ 
ning all over the mountain desert. Now he wants to 
save Dozier. Wants to risk his life for him. Wants 
to buy him from us! Why? Because he’s turned 
crooked. He’s turned soft. He wants to get under the 
wing of the law.” 

But Jeff Rankin swept all argument away with a move¬ 
ment of his big paws. 

“Too much talk,” he said. “I want to think.” 

His stupid, animal eyes went laboriously around the 


AT THE POINT OF A RIFLE 391 

room. ‘T wish Allister was here/' he said. ‘‘He al¬ 
ways knew.’* 

“For my part,” said Scottie, “I can’t be bought. Not 
me!” He suddenly leaned to the big man, and, before 
Andrew could speak, he had said: “Jeff, you know why 
I want to get Dozier. Because he ran down my brother. 
Curse him, and curse him again! And are you going to 
let him go clear, Jeff? Are you going to have Allister 
haunt you ?” 

It was the decisive stroke. The big head of Jeff 
twitched back, he opened his lips to speak—and in that 
moment, knowing that the battle was over and lost to 
him, Andrew, who had moved back, made one leap and 
was through the door and into the little shed again. The 
gun had gleamed in the hand of Larry la Roche as he 
sprang, but Andrew had been too quick for the outlaw 
to plant his shot. 

He heard Jeff Rankin still speaking: “I dunno, quite. 
But I see you’re right, Scottie. They ain’t any reason 
for Banning to be so chummy with Dozier. And so 
they must be somethin’ crooked about it. Boys, I’m 
with you to the limit 1 Go as far as you like. I’m be¬ 
hind you 1” 

No room for argument now; and the blind, animal hate 
which Scottie and La Roche and Clune felt for Dozier 
was sure to drive them to extremities. Andrew sat in 
the dark, hurriedly going over his rifle and his revolver. 
Once he was about to throw open the door and try the 
effect of a surprise attack. He might plant two shots 
before there was a return; he let the idea slip away from 
him. There would remain two more, and one of them 
was certain to kill him. 

Moving across the room he heard a whisper irem 


FREE RANGE FANNING 


292 

floor: ‘‘Eve heard them, Lanning. Don't be a fool. 
Give me up to 'em!" 

He made no answer. In the other room the voices 
were no longer restrained; Jeff Rankin's in particular 
boomed and rang and filled the shed. Once bent on ac¬ 
tion he was all for the attack; whisky had removed the 
last human scruple. And Andrew heard them openly 
cast their ballots for a new leader; heard Scottie ac¬ 
claimed; heard the Scotchman say: ''Boys, I'm going 
to show you a way to clean up on Dozier and Lanning, 
without any man risking a single shot from him in re¬ 
turn." 

They clamored for the suggestion, but he told them 
that he was first going out into the open to think it over. 
In the meantime they had nothing to fear. Sit fast and 
have another drink around. He had to be alone to figure 
it out. 

It was very plain. The wily rascal would let them go 
one step farther toward an insanity of drink, and then, 
his own brain cold and collected, he would come back 
to turn the shack into a shambles. He had said he could 
do it without risk to them. There was only one possible 
meaning; he intended to use fire. 

Andrew sat with the butt of his rifle ground into his 
forehead. It was still easy to escape; the insistent whis¬ 
per from the floor was pointing out the way: "Beat it 
out that back window, lad. Slope, Andy; they's no use. 
You can't help me. They mean fire; they'll pot you like 
a pig, from the dark. Give me up!" 

It was the advice to use the window that decided An¬ 
drew. It was a wild chance indeed, this leaving of Do¬ 
zier helpless on the floor; but he risked it. He whispered 
to the marshal that he would return, and slipped through 
the window. He was not halfway around the house be- 


AT THE POINT OF A RIFLE 


293 


fore he heard a voice that chilled him with horror. It 
was the marshal calling to them that Andrew was gone 
and inviting them in to finish him. But they suspected, 
naturally enough, that the invitation was a trap, and they 
contented themselves with abusing him for thinking them 
such fools. 

Andrew went on; fifty feet from the house and just 
aside from the shaft of light that fell from the open 
door, stood Scottie. His head was bare, his face was 
turned up to catch the wind, and no doubt he was dream¬ 
ing of the future which lay before him as the new cap¬ 
tain of AllisteFs band. The whisper of Andrew behind 
him cut his dream short. He whirled to receive the muz¬ 
zle of a revolver in his stomach. His hands went up, 
and he stood gasping faintly in the moonlight. . 

^T’ve got you, Scottie,*' he said, “and so help me 
Heaven, you're the first man that I've wanted to kill." 

It would have taken a man of supernerve to outface 
that situation. And the nerve of Scottie cracked. 

He began to whisper with a horrible break and sob 
in his breath: “Andy—Andy, gimme a chance. I'm 
not fit to go—this way. Andy, remember-" 

“I'm going to give you a chance. You're pretty low, 
Scottie; I check what you've done to the way you hate 
Dozier, and I won't hold a grudge. And I'll tell you 
the chance you've got. You see these rocks, here? I’m 
goin' to lie down behind them. I’m going to keep you 
covered with my rifle. Scottie, did you ever see me 
shoot with a rifle?" 

Scottie shuddered—a very sufficient reply. 

“I’m going to keep you covered. Then you'll turn 
around and walk straight back to the shack. You'll 
stand there—always in clean sight of the doorway ^and 
you'll persuade that crowd of drunks to leave the house 



294 


FREE RANGE FANNING 


and ride away with you. Understand, when you get 
inside the house, there’ll be a big temptation to jump to 
one side and get behind the wall—^just one twitch of your 
muscles, and you’d be safe. But, fast as you could move, 
Scottie, powder drives lead a lot faster. And I’ll have 
you centered every minute. You’ll make a pretty little 
target against the light, besides. You understand? 

‘'The moment you even start to move fast, I pull the 
trigger. Remember it, Scottie. For as sure as there’s 
a hell, ril send you into it head first, if you don’t.” 

“So help me Heaven,” said Scottie, “I’ll do what I 
can. I think I can talk ’em into it. But if I don’t?” 

“If you don’t, you’re dead. That’s short, and that’s 
sweet. Keep it in your head. Go back and tell them 
it would take too great a risk to try to fix me. 

“And there’s another thing to remember. 'If you 
should be able to get behind the wall without being shot, 
you’re not safe. Not by a long way, Scottie. I’d still 
be alive. And, though you’d have Hal Dozier there to 
cut up as you pleased, I’d be here outside the cabin watch¬ 
ing it—with my rifle. And I’d tag some of you when 
you tried to get out. And if I didn’t get you all I’d 
start on your trail. Scottie, you fellows, even when you 
had Allister to lead you, couldn’t get off scot-free from 
Dozier. Scottie, I give you my solemn word of honor, 
you’ll find me a harder man to get free from than Hal 
Dozier. 

“Here’s the last thing: If you do what I tell you— 
if you get that crowd of drunken brutes out of the cabin 
and away without harming Dozier, I’ll wipe out the score 
between us. No matter what you told the rest of them, 
you know I’ve never broken a promfee, and that I never 
shall.” 

He stopped and, stepping back to the rocks, sank 


AT THE POINT OF A RIFLE 


295 

slowly down behind them. Only the muzzle of his rifle 
showed, no more than the glint of a tiny bit of quartz; 
his left hand was raised, and, at its gesture, Scottie turned 
and walked slowly toward the cabin doorway. Once, 
stumbling over something, he reeled almost out of the 
shaft of light, but stopped on the edge of safety with a 
terrible trembling. There he stood for a moment, and 
Andrew knew that he was gathering his nerve. He 
went on; he stood in the doorway, leaning with one arm 
against it. 

What followed Andrew could not hear, except an occa¬ 
sional roar from Rankin. Once Larry la Roche came 
and stood before the new leader, gesturing frantically, 
and the ring of his voice came clearly to Andrew. The 
Scotchman negligently stood to one side; the way between 
Andrew and Larry was cleared, and Andrew could not 
help smiling at the fiendish malevolence of Scottie. But 
he was apparently able to convince even Larry la Roche 
by means of words. At length there was a bustling in 
the cabin, a loud confusion, and finally the whole troop 
went out. Somebody brought Scottie his saddle; Jeff 
Rankin came out reeling. 

But Scottie stirred last from the doorway; there he 
stood in the shaft of light until some one, cursing, brought 
him his horse. He mounted it in full view. Then the 
cavalcade started down the ravine. 

Certainly it was not an auspicious beginning for Scot* 
tie Macdougal, 


CHAPTER XLI 

BETWEEN A HORSE AND A GIRL 

T he first ten days of the following time were the hard¬ 
est; it was during that period that Scottie and the 
rest were most apt to return and make a backstroke at 
Dozier and Andrew. For Andrew knew well enough 
that this was the argument—^the promise of a surprise 
attack—with which Scottie had lured his men away from 
the shack. 

During that ten days, and later, he adopted a syste¬ 
matic plan of work. During the nights he paid two visits 
to the sick man. On one occasion he dressed the wound; 
on the next he did the cooking and put food and water 
beside the marshal, to last him through the day. 

After that he went out and took up his post. As a 
rule he waited on the top of the hill in the clump of pines. 
From this position he commanded with his rifle the sweep 
of hillside all around the cabin. The greatest time of 
danger for Dozier was when Andrew had to scout 
through the adjacent hills for food—^their supply of meat 
ran out on the fourth day. 

But the ten days passed; and after that, in spite of the 
poor care he had received—or perhaps aided by the abso¬ 
lute quiet—the marshal’s iron constitution asserted itself 
more and more strongly. He began to mend rapidly. 
Eventually he could sit up, and, when that time came, the 
great period of anxiety was over. For Dozier could sit 
with his rifle across his knees, or, leaning against the 


BETWEEN A HORSE AND A GIRL 297, 

chair which Andrew had improvised, command a fairly 
good outlook. 

Only once—it was at the close of the fourth week— 
did Andrew find suspicious signs in the vicinity of the 
cabin—the telltale trampling on a place where four horses 
had milled in an impatient circle. But no doubt the gang 
had thought caution to be the better part of hate. They 
remembered the rifle of Andrew and had gone on with¬ 
out making a sign. Afterward Andrew learned why 
they had not returned sooner. Three hours after they 
left the shack a posse had picked them up in the moon¬ 
light, and there had followed a forty-mile chase. 

But all through the time until the marshal could actu¬ 
ally stand and walk, and finally sit his saddle with little 
danger of injuring the wound, Andrew, knowing noth¬ 
ing of what took place outside, was ceaselessly on the 
watch. Literally, during all that period, he never closed 
his eyes for more than a few minutes of solid sleep. And, 
before the danger line had been crossed, he was worn to 
a shadow. When he turned his head the cords leaped 
out on his neck. His eyes were buried in his head by 
that long vigil, and his mouth had that look, at once sav¬ 
age and nervous, which goes always with the hunted man. 

And it was not until he was himself convinced that 
Dozier could take care of himself that he wrapped him¬ 
self in his blankets and fell into a twenty-four-hour sleep. 
He awoke finally with a start, out of a dream in which 
he had found himself, in imagination, wakened by Scot- 
tie stooping over him. He had reached for his revolver 
at his side, in the dream, and had found nothing. Now, 
waking, his hand was working nervously across the floor 
of the shack. That part of the dream was come true, 
but, instead of Scottie leaning over him, it was the mar¬ 
shal, who sat in his chair with his rifle across his knees. 


FREE RANGE FANNING 


298 

Andrew sat up. His weapons had been indeed removed, 
and the marshal was looking at him with beady eyes. 

‘‘Have you seen ’em?” asked Andrew. “Have the 
boys shown themselves ?” 

He started to get up, but the marshal’s crisp voice cut 
in on him. “Sit down there.” 

There had been—was it possible to believe it ?—a mo¬ 
tion of the gun in the hands of the marshal to point this 
last remark. 

“Partner,” said Andrew, stunned, “what are you 
drivin’ at?” 

“I’ve been thinking,” said Hal Dozier. “You sit tight 
till I tell you what about.” 

“It’s just driftin’ into my head, sort of misty,” mur¬ 
mured Andrew, “that you’ve been thinkin’ about double 
crossin’ me.” 

“Suppose,” said the marshal, “I was to ride into Mar- 
tindale with you in front of me. That’d make a pretty 
good picture, Andy. Allister dead, and you taken alive. 
Not to speak of ten thousand dollars as a background. 
That would sort of round off my work. I could retire 
and live happy ever after, eh?” 

Andrew peered into the grim face of the older man; 
there was not a flicker of a smile in it. 

“Go on,” he said, “but think twice, Hal. If I was you, 
I’d think ten times!” 

The marshal met those terrible, blazing eyes without 
a quiver of his own. 

“I began with thinking about that picture,” he said. 
“Later on I had some other thoughts—about you. Andy, 
d’you see that you don’t fit around here? You’re neither 
a man-killer nor a law-abidin’ citizen. You wouldn’t fit 
in Martindale any more, and you certainly won’t fit with 
lany gang of crooks that ever wore guns. Look at the 


BETWEEN A HORSE AND A GIRL 299 

way you split with Allister’s outfit! Same thing would 
happen again. So, as far as I can see, it doesn’t make 
much difference whether I trot you into town and collect 
the ten thousand, or whether some of the crooks who hate 
you run you down—or some posse corners you one of 
these days and does its job. How do you see it?’’ 

Andrew said nothing, but his face spoke for him. 

“How d’you see the future yourself?” said the mar¬ 
shal. His voice changed suddenly: “Talk to me, 
Andy.” 

Andrew looked carefully at him; then he spoke. 

“I’ll tell you short and quick, Hal. I want action. 
That’s all. I want something to keep my mind and my 
hands busy. Doing nothing is the thing I’m afraid of.” 

“I gather you’re not very happy, Andy?” 

Lanning smiled, and it was not a pleasant smile to see. 

“I’m empty, Hal,” he answered. “Does that answer 
you ? The crooks are against me, the law is against me. 
Well, they’ll work together to keep me busy. I don’t 
want any man’s help. I’m a bad man, Hal. I know it. 
I don’t deny it. I don’t ask any quarter.” 

It was rather a desperate speech—rather a boyish one. 
At any rate the marshal smiled, and a curious flush came 
in Andrew’s face. 

“Will you let me tell you a story, Andrew? It’s a 
story about yourself.” 

He went on: “You were a kid in Martindale. 
Husky, good-natured, a little sleepy, with touchy nerves, 
not very confident in yourself. I’ve known other kids 
like you, but none just the same type. 

“You weren’t waked up. You see? The pinch was 
bound to come in a town where every man wore his gun. 
You were bound to face a show-down. There were equal 
chances. Either you’d back down and take water from 


300 


FREE RANGE FANNING 


sometxxiy, or else you’d give the man a beating. If the 
first thing happened, you’d have been a coward the rest 
of your life. But the other thing was what happened, 
and it gave you a touch of the iron that a man needs in 
his blood. Iron dust, Andy, iron dust! 

‘'You had bad luck, you think. I tell you that you 
were bound to fall out with the law, because you were 
too strong, too touchy—and too quick with a gun. You 
had too much of the stuff that explodes. Also, you had 
a lot of imagination. You thought you’d killed a man; 
it made you think you were a bom murderer. You be¬ 
gan to look back to the old stories about the Lannings— 
a wild crew of men. You thought that blood was what 
was a,-showing in you. 

“Partly you were right, partly you were wrong. There 
was a new strength in you. You thought it was the 
strength of a desperado. Do you know what the change 
was? It was the change from boyhood to manhood. 
That was all—a sort of chemical change, Andy. 

“See what happened: You had your first fight and 
you saw your first girl, all about the same time. But 
here’s what puzzles me: according to the way I figure 
it, you must have seen the girl first. But it seems that 
you didn’t. Will you tell me?” 

“We won’t talk about the girl,” said Andrew in a heavy 
voice. 

“Tut, tut! Won’t we? Boy, we’re going to do more 
talking about her than about anything else. Well, any¬ 
way, you saw the girl, fell in love with her, went away. 
Met up with a posse which my brother happened to lead. 
Killed your man. Went on. Rode like the wind. Went 
through about a hundred adventures in as many days. 
And little by little you were fixing in your ways. You 
were changing from boyhood into manhood, and you 


BETWEEN A HORSE AND A GIRL 


301 


were changing without any authority over you. Most 
youngsters have their fathers over them when that change 
comes. All of ’em have the law. But you didn’t have 
either. And the result was that you changed from a 
boy into a man, and a free man. You hear me? You 
found that you could do what you wanted to do; noth¬ 
ing could hold you back except one thing—^the girl!” 

Andrew caught his breath, but the marshal would not 
let him speak. 

‘T’ve seen other free men—^most people called them 
desperadoes. What’s a desperado in the real sense ? A 
man who won’t submit to the law. That’s all he is. But, 
because he won’t submit, he usually runs foul of other 
men. He kills one. Then he kills another. Finally 
he gets the blood lust. Well, Andy, that’s what you 
never got. You killed one man—he brought it on him^ 
self. But look back over the rest of your career. Most 
people think you’ve killed twenty. That’s because they’ve 
heard a pack of lies. You’re a desperado—a free man 
—but you’re not a man-killer. And there’s the whole 
point. 

‘‘And this was what turned you loose as a criminal— 
you thought the girl had cut loose from you. Otherwise 
to this day you’d have been trying to get away across the 
mountains and be a good, quiet member of society. But 
you thought the girl had cut loose from you, and it hurt 
you. Man-killer? Bah! You’re simply lovesick, my 
boy!” 

“Talk slow,” whispered Andrew. “My—my head’s 
whirling.” 

“It’ll whirl more, pretty soon. Andy, do you know 
that the girl never married Charles Merchant?” 

There was a wild yell; Andrew was stopped in mid¬ 
air by a rifle thrust into his stomach. 


302 


FREE RANGE FANNING 


‘'She broke off her engagement. She came to me be¬ 
cause she knew I was running the man hunt. She begged 
me to let you have a chance. She tried to buy me. She 
told me everything that had gone between you. Andy, 
she put her head on my desk and cried while she was 
begging for you' 

“Stop!’’ whispered Andrew. 

"But I wouldn’t lay off your trail, Andy. Why? Be¬ 
cause I’m as proud as a devil. I’d started to get you and 
I’d lost Gray Peter trying. And even after you saved 
me from Allister’s men I was still figuring how I could 
get you. And then, little by little, I saw that the girl 
had seen the truth. You weren’t really a crook. You 
weren’t really a man-killer. You were simply a kid that 
turned into a man in a day—and turned into a free man! 
You were too strong for the law. 

"Now, Andrew, here’s my point: As long as you 
stay here in the mountain desert you’ve no chance. 
You’ll be among men who know you. Even if the gov¬ 
ernor pardons you—as he might do if a certain deputy 
marshal were to start pulling strings—^you’d run some 
day into a man who had an old grudge against you, and 
there’d be another explosion. Because there’s nitrogly¬ 
cerin inside you, son! 

"Well, the thing for you to do is to get where men 
don’t wear guns. The thing for you to do is to find a 
girl you love a lot more than you do your freedom, even. 
If that’s possible-” 

"Where is she?” broke in Andy. "Hal, for pity’s 
sake, tell me where she is!” 

"I’ve got her address all written out. She forgot 
nothing. She left it with me, she said, so she could 
keep in touch with me.” 

"It’s no good,” said Andy suddenly. "I could never 



BETWEEN A HORSE AND A GIRL 303 

get through the mountains. People know me too well. 
They know Sally too well.” 

“Of course they do. So you’re not going to go with 
Sally. You’re not going to ride a horse. You’re going 
in another way. Everybody’s seen your picture. But 
who’d recognize the dashing young man-killer, the origi¬ 
nal wild Andrew Banning, in the shape of a greasy, dirty 
tramp, with a ten-days-old beard on his face, with a 
dirty felt hat pulled over one eye, and riding the brake 
beams on the way East? And before you got off the 
beams, Andrew, the governor of this State will have 
signed a pardon for you. Well, lad, what do you say ?” 

But Andrew, walking like one dazed, had crossed the 
room slowly. The marshal saw him go across to the 
place where Sally stood; she met him halfway, and, in 
her impudent way, tipped his hat half off his head with 
a toss of her nose. He put his arm around her neck 
and they walked slowly off together. 

“Well,” said Hal Dozier faintly, “what can you do 
with a man who don’t know how to choose between a 
horse and a girl ?” 


THE END 


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Beulah. (Ill. Ed.) By Augusta J. Evans. 





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Black Is White, By George Barr MdCutcheon. 

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